


Fight the Rising Odds

by bertee



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greece & Rome, Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M, Past attempted noncon, Rescue, Sexual Harassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-22
Updated: 2011-11-22
Packaged: 2017-11-11 10:02:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/477339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bertee/pseuds/bertee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen is sexually harassed by the entire Greek pantheon and Jared is hopelessly in love with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fight the Rising Odds

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "lust chosen".

Jared almost wished he was still surprised by knocks on his door in the middle of the night.

The sun was long hidden away, cloaking Nichoria in darkness, and Jared strained to see in the moonlight as he once again picked his way through the shadowy hallways to the main door. He really needed to invest in more lamps. Lamps were useful.

The bolt slid across with a clank. Jared entertained the brief hope that his night-time visitor would be a thief or a murderer or possibly even a man-eating boar before he grabbed the handle and pulled the door open to face reality.

"Hi, Jared."

Jensen gave him a smile and a tired wave. Jared wondered if getting chomped to death by a crazed boar would be less painful than the way that smile tugged at his insides.

"Hey," he said quietly. "Rough night?"

"Something like that." Jensen leaned against the column beside the door with a sigh. "Perseus is a giant dickwad."

Jared frowned. "Which one's Perseus? The name sounds familiar…"

"The Medusa guy."

Realization dawned and Jared raised his eyebrows. "Oh, wow, the dumbass who needed all the handouts? Even my dogs could kill a Gorgon if someone gave them magic weapons, magic shields, magic shoes, magic knapsacks, and magic invisibility helmets."

"I'm pretty sure they wouldn't even need that," Jensen said. "Your dogs are ruthless killing machines." Jared pouted a little on Sadie and Harley's behalf and Jensen amended, "Very sweet ruthless killing machines."

That seemed like a suitable description to Jared. "So Perseus came to see you?"

"Yep." Jensen did not look thrilled. "He brought the head."

It took a second for Jared to work out what he meant but when it hit, it hit hard. "Eww, seriously? Who brings a guy a severed head? Did he think you were going to take one look at it and declare your undying love for him?"

"You know me," Jensen said. "Nothing gets me to put out faster than a rotting Gorgon head."

"Damn." Jared feigned a sigh. "You couldn't have told me this before I wasted all this time getting to know you as a person?"

Jensen grinned at that. He looked tired but he seemed more relaxed as Jared opened the door to shepherd him inside. "I'm assuming you wanna crash here tonight?"

"If that's okay," Jensen said with a yawn. "They should leave me alone if I'm here."

"No problem. You're always welcome," he said, a smidge too honestly. He stepped aside to let Jensen come in but squinted against the darkness when he saw that Jensen was holding something in his hand. "What's that?"

"You know how Medusa's head turns people to stone if they look at it? Well, dickwad Perseus thought it would be a good idea to let my dog take a peek."

He held up the object in his hand. The moonlight fell on the small stone statue, formerly known as Icarus the dog, and Jared cringed in sympathy when he saw the dopey little headtilt and the curious expression that was now fixed on its frozen face. 

"I'm sorry, Jensen," he said sadly. He knew Jensen adored that dog, possibly more than he adored Jared, and seeing the usually boisterous Icarus petrified in Jensen's hands was unnerving and upsetting. 

He made a mental note never to let Perseus near Harley and Sadie.

"We can go see Artemis tomorrow," he said. "You never know, she might be able to change him back to flesh and fur."

Jensen petted Icarus' unmoving head. "I hope so."

Before Jared could ask what had happened to Perseus -- he really didn't want to have to clean up another body, especially after the double-header of Polynices and Eteocles fighting to the mutual death on Jensen's doorstep the month before -- he heard the click of nails on the tiled floor as Harley ambled out of the dining room. Clearly in search of new and exciting smells, he made a beeline for Jensen and wagged his tail lazily as he sniffed Jensen's feet then Icarus then Jensen's feet some more.

"I think he's volunteering to be a temporary replacement," Jared said, resting his hand on Jensen's shoulder. "You should get some sleep, man. We'll find Artemis first thing in the morning."

Jensen reached up to squeeze Jared's hand. "Thanks, Jared."

Jared's brain veered between 'You're welcome' and 'I love you' as possible things to blurt out in response but Harley yapped loudly before he could say anything. He looked down to see Harley butting his head up against Jensen's thigh, because dogs had needs and obviously it had been far too long since someone paid attention to him, and Jensen dropped his hand to scritch behind his ears.

"The cushions and blankets are all set up on your usual couch," Jared said, leaning down to pat Harley on the back. "Fair warning, this one'll probably try to spoon." Jensen smiled and Jared held his hands up. "Hey, you laugh now…"

Jensen failed to appear contrite. "I'm sorry, I will heed your very important warning about your dog trying to spoon me."

"Damn straight." Jensen and Harley took off towards the dining room and its couches, Icarus still tucked in Jensen's hand, and Jared asked after him, "Hey, what happened to Perseus?"

Jensen turned back. "I punched him," he said simply, "so he left."

Jared grinned in approval. "Nice work."

"No-one messes with my dog," Jensen mumbled as he padded off towards Jared's dining room. "Dickwad."

"Sleep well!" Jared called. Jensen glanced back over his shoulder before Harley could nudge him inside but once he was out of sight, Jared let his head thunk against the nearest pillar.

His best friend was fending off unwanted sexual advances from some of Greece's greatest heroes. It wasn't the best time for Jared to have a crush.

  
**+++**   


The sun was just crowning the tree-tops when they found Artemis the next morning.

Of all the gods who lurked around Greece like they had nothing better to do with their immortal lives, Jared spent the most time with Artemis. This was mostly due to Artemis' position as goddess of the hunt and the fact that Jared was pretty kickass when it came to running through the woods with weapons like a disoriented warlord, but he and Artemis had also bonded over the ugliness of Dionysus' new temple, the shady moral character of Nichoria's military commander, and the tunic color which most suited Jared's complexion. 

It was an very educational friendship.

As he and Jensen trudged up the wooded slope, Jared was therefore relieved to see his favorite goddess perched on a fallen log, her bow and arrows propped up by her feet. 

Harley and Sadie went bounding up to say their usual hellos in the form of wet noses and enthusiastic panting, and Jared spoke under his breath to Jensen, "Hey, looks like we're in luck."

Jensen's smile was strained when he looked down at Icarus. "I hope so."

Artemis slid down off the log when they approached and Jared was struck yet again by how small she was. It was kind of unsettling that a goddess who could wipe out at the Nichoria in the blink of an eye looked like she'd be flattened if Harley jumped up to say hi.

She was dressed in her deep blue hunting garb, which served to highlight the brown of her eyes and the curls of dark hair which fell down past her shoulders to brush her (pretty awesome) breasts. If she'd had the slightest interest in dick, Jared would've been all over her months ago but as it was, their friendship was blissfully free from romantic complications, aside from Jared keeping her up-to-date on the romantic complications of being friends with Jensen.

(As far as Artemis' lovelife was concerned, legend had it that she was a virgin. However, Jared had caught too many knowing glances between Artemis and her equally hot head priestess to be convinced by that particular rumor.)

Disentangling herself from the pair of dogs which were circling her ankles, Artemis greeted him with a smile. "Jared." Her gaze traveled to Jensen and her smile grew a little less broad. "Jensen. Haven't seen you for a while."

Jensen looked nervous. Given his history with the gods, Jared couldn't really blame him. 

"Thank you for seeing us?" he said politely and Jared elbowed him in the side.

"Relax," he whispered, loud enough for Artemis to hear. "She's not going to smite us." He was almost ninety-five percent sure about the lack of smiting but looked to Artemis for confirmation. "Right?"

"Mostly I just hunt animals," she agreed. "I save people-hunting for special occasions."

Jensen went pale.

"I'm joking, Jensen." She smiled and leaned up to kiss him on the cheek. "It's good to see you again."

Jared and Jensen had first met Artemis was a few years ago. Artemis' brother, Apollo, had decided that Jensen was too pretty not to have and so had spent hours chasing him through the woods in what had to be the creepiest attempt at foreplay Jared had ever seen. 

Jared had shown up later to find that a helpful nymph had turned Jensen into a tree to help him stay unmolested. Artemis had then popped down from Olympus to un-treeify Jensen and apologize for her asshole of a brother.

Apparently she'd then given the rest of the gods a very long lecture using very small words on the importance of getting consent before initiating sex. This resulted in Jensen receiving lots of awkward pick-up attempts rather than anything more physical, which they decided was a definite improvement, and Jared and Artemis had been friends ever since.

Seeing that Jensen was still clutching a petrified Icarus, Jared fixed Artemis with his best smile. (It was a pretty awesome smile. Theognis had written at least three odes about that smile.) 

"Hey, is there any chance you can turn Jensen's dog back to an actual dog?" he asked hopefully. "I promise to bring you three rabbits as tribute."

Artemis raised her eyebrows.

"Or a deer?" Jared amended. "Stag? Boar? Hydra? I will give you something large and impressive if you fix Icarus."

"Large and impressive, huh?" Her eyes dropped to Jared's crotch and Jensen failed to hide his smirk. "Save it for someone who appreciates it, Jared. I'll do what I can for the puppy."

"He's actually just a regular dog," Jensen said, holding Icarus out for inspection. "Just, uh, little."

Smiling, Artemis tilted her head to get a better look at Icarus' face. At her feet, Harley pranced around in a circle, as if reminding them all that yes, he was still the size of a small horse.

"He's cute," Artemis said, patting Icarus' head. "What happened to him?"

"Perseus happened," Jensen said with barely concealed disdain. Jared really wished he'd been there to see Jensen punch him. "He has this head-"

Artemis held her hand up and grimaced. "I get it. And ick." She lifted Icarus out of Jensen's hands and examined him. "You know he might not make it, right? I'll do what I can but reverse petrification can be a messy process." She scrunched up her nose. It was almost cute. "All those bodily fluids to reanimate."

Jensen nodded anxiously and Jared wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "I know," Jensen said, inching closer to Jared. "I- Please can you try?"

Jared watched in silence as Artemis closed her eyes and gripped the statue tighter. Blue light flowed from her fingertips in a steadily pulsing wave and the wind rushed faster through the trees, catching Jared's hair and blowing his tunic against his thighs. She breathed out, fingers flexing against Icarus' body, and Jared blinked in amazement when he saw the gray of the stone start to melt away from the white of Icarus' fur.

He and Jensen gave a simultaneous sigh of relief when Icarus let out a pleased yap and immediately did his best to lick Artemis' face.

Jensen quickly stepped forward to take him back, scratching behind his ears and under his chin as Icarus scrabbled against his chest with little furry feet and pushed his face against Jensen's neck. "Hey, boy," Jensen said, clearly delighted enough not to care about babytalking his dog in front of his best friend and an Olympian deity. "Who's a good boy? Who's not made of stone any more? No, you're not. Good boy."

Jared crouched down to pet Sadie, who was now eyeing Icarus with suspicion. She was clearly not on board with these reverse petrification shenanigans. 

Artemis wiped Icarus-slobber off her cheek and rubbed her hands clean. "I'm assuming he's healthy enough now?"

Finally wrangling a squirmy, over-excited Icarus under control, Jensen said happily, "Thank you. Really."

"You're welcome." She smirked. "I hope you and your incredibly small dog are happy together." 

Icarus' energy disappeared as quickly as it had arisen. Evidently spending the night as a statue was very tiring if you were a small, bouncy dog, and within seconds he had slumped into a furry heap and was snoring happily against Jensen's chest. 

Jensen looked at Icarus like he'd just fought off the entire Persian army rather than fallen asleep in his arms with his stumpy little legs in the air, and he ran his fingers through his curly white fur with a fond smile. "He's great. Thank you again."

"Don't mention it." Jared could've sworn he saw a twinkle in Artemis' eye when she glanced over at him. "I'll leave you two alone." Harley barked pointedly. "You five. I need to go find something that'll make a good meal for me and Dan-" She glanced over at Jensen and corrected, "For my high priestess. As a reward for her, uh, services."

Jared found it reassuring that a goddess was about as smooth as he was.

Artemis brushed white dog hairs off the blue cloth of her skirt and picked up her bow and arrows. "Try not to let your dogs see any more Gorgon heads for a while, okay?"

Jensen nodded fervently and Jared smiled. "Thank you."

Giving him a short nod, Artemis said with a smirk, "See you soon. I'll be wanting updates."

Jensen looked confused and Jared said quickly, "Bye!" 

He really wasn't prepared to explain that he sometimes gave Artemis updates on how embarrassingly in love with Jensen he was.

With a final nod, she vanished like the wind, slipping through the trees and disappearing into the forest in search of her prey. Dressed only in a thin tunic, Jensen shivered in the breeze and Jared wrapped his arm around him again. "So I guess Icarus will be back to launching surprise attacks on my ankles any time now?"

Jensen smiled and stroked Icarus' head as he snoozed in his arms. "He would be the worst hunting dog ever. Even rabbits scare him."

"Hey, you never know. Someone might discover a creature that's made entirely of ankles. Icarus would become the most fearsome hunting dog in all of Greece." Icarus snootled further into the safety of Jensen's arms. "Those are snores of a champion right there."

Jensen laughed. He leaned into Jared until his head was almost resting against his shoulder and he let out a contented breath as the wind whipped their tunics against their legs. "I kind of wish we could just stay here," he said quietly. "Just us and the dogs in the woods, away from everything else."

"I could build a treehouse," Jared suggested. "And some mini treehouses for the dogs."

Jensen smiled tiredly. "That could work. I could carve some furniture and utensils and we could hide out here."

"Until we ran out of money to buy bread," Jared pointed out. At twenty-two and twenty-four, they weren't exactly in a good position to break out on their own with minimal savings and/or survival expertise. "We'd probably starve. That would suck." 

He hated to inject realism into any kind of fantasy that involved him and Jensen alone and happy together but there was no sense getting attached to what they couldn't have. (Having Jensen move into his regular house in town, on the other hand, was a totally practical and achievable goal.)

"Fair point," Jensen conceded. "I guess we should head back to the village. I have carvings to finish and you have prey to catch."

He eased himself free from Jared's hug and Jared asked, "You sure you're okay?"

Jensen nodded, shifting a sleepy Icarus in his arms. "Sure I am. I've got this little guy, right?"

Harley and Sadie trotted out ahead as Jensen turned to head home, and Jared allowed himself a brief, painful fantasy of being able to pull Jensen in for a kiss before hurrying to follow him back down the hill. 

Still, there was definitely a bright side. True, Jared was still a complete failure when it came to actually expressing his feelings for Jensen but Jensen hadn't been hit on by anyone else that day either.

Jared had really low standards for what qualified as a bright side.

  


**+++**  


On their way back down to the village, a satyr gave Jensen an impressively explicit description of some of the more exciting uses for a goat penis.

Even with Jared's low standards, the bright sides never lasted very long.

  
**+++**  


It wasn't like supernatural beings focused only on Jensen. The gods and their assorted offspring were notoriously fickle when it came to Things They Wanted To Have Sex With and everyone knew it.

Heck, even Jared had been the target of choice a couple of times, with the most recent being an enjoyably literal roll in the hay with Aphrodite a few months back. He was also kind of proud of the fact that he'd banged Hercules when they were teenagers, even if Hercules had disavowed all knowledge of it when rediscovered his daddy issues and embarked on his new career path of being bulky and dim.

Unfortunately, Jensen's situation was different.

The gods had always had a strange obsession with superlatives, wanting to be the most powerful god ever or to fight in the most awe-inspiring way possible or to have the shiniest tiara out of all tiaras in existence. However, Jared had only become aware of the consequences of this when one day it had been decreed that Jensen was now the fairest person in the gods' domain.

This was apparently the equivalent of waving a pot of delicious honey in front of a swarm of very grabby flies, and so while ordinary mortals had carried on as normal, gods, demigods, heroes and other superhuman entities had decided that Jensen would now be theirs and theirs alone. 

(Personally, Jared blamed the in-breeding. Nothing good ever came from that much inter-divinity incest.)

For obvious reasons, this sucked for Jensen but it sucked extra-hard because Jensen had made it to age eighteen without having sex. Jared was pretty sure that the whole virginity thing contributed to the decision on Jensen's eighteenth birthday to name him the fairest, because the gods were gross and skeevily obsessed with virgins, but now that Jensen had that title, he basically had no chance of getting laid without being treated like a trophy fuck.

This also threw a Titan-sized wrench in Jared's own plans. Sure, he wanted to be with Jensen but in a mutual let's-live-happily-ever-after-in-a-house-with-some-dogs way rather than a creepy I-get-bragging-rights-if-I-fuck-you way. Plus he figured Jensen's life already sucked ass without his best friend confessing he was in love with him.

Still, there were some very limited advantages to the predicament, as demonstrated when Jensen showed up at the tavern the next evening and dropped a bag full of gold on the table with a smirk.

Jared blinked. The gold didn't disappear.

"Did you kill someone for money?"

Jensen stared at him. "How is that the first thing you think of?"

"Hey, you never know," Jared said. It had seemed like a sensible suggestion at the time. "For all I know, you could be moonlighting as a professional killer. Short, mild-mannered artist by day; short, bloodthirsty assassin by night."

Jensen punched him on the arm. "Fuck you, I'm not short. And I'm not an assassin." He shook the bag to make the gold jingle. "This is from Zeus."

Jared really didn't want to leap to conclusions. It wasn't his fault that his brain could only supply one reason why Zeus would be giving Jensen bags of gold.

"You slept with him?"

Jensen looked nauseated. "No. That's disgusting."

He had a point. Jared didn't know if the gods could get diseases on their nether regions but if they could, Zeus' junk must've looked like a minotaur threw up on it. Because seriously, the guy turned himself into a swan to have sex. At some point his dick had been covered in swan come. It was gross.

"I didn't have sex with him," Jensen promised, "but he did show up this afternoon."

"Really? What form was he in this time?" Jared asked. "Chaffinch? Meerkat? Dragon?"

"Try 'golden shower'."

"Wha-" Jared's frown instantly deepened to an appalled grimace. "What the fuck? That's…" He couldn't find the right word to express just how unpleasant that was as a pick-up attempt and so settled for, "…really unhygienic."

Confusingly, Jensen laughed. Jared would definitely not be that amused if the King of the Gods had shown up in his house as a stream of piss.

"It's not what you're thinking," Jensen said. "It was an actual golden shower. Like, he rained down gold pieces." He jingled the bag again and actually sounded kind of impressed. "It was very shiny."

Jared loved Jensen but sometimes he wondered if one of his ancestors had possibly been a magpie.

"Anyway," Jensen continued, "Zeus asked me to sleep with him. I don't even understand the mechanics of how that was supposed to work -- was he just going to spray gold up my ass? -- but I said no so he disappeared and left all the gold behind him." He beamed and jingled the bag some more. Apparently Jensen was really into jingling today. "Guess I'll be buying the drinks for a while."

Jared grinned. It was good to see Jensen happy, and it was about time something positive came from Jensen's Most Wanted status.

"Way to bury the lead," he teased, kicking back in his chair. "Line 'em up, man."

  
**+++**  


When Jared dragged himself back to consciousness the next morning, he decided that Zeus was kind of an asshole.

Sure, he and Jensen had been the ones who made the rash decision to drink their way through a whole bag of gold in one evening, but it would never have happened if Zeus hadn't provided the gold in the first place. Asshole.

Staring up at the blurry ceiling, Jared made a noise of displeasure at the way his head throbbed painfully. "Mnerp."

He frowned when he was answered by a very sleepy but thankfully human voice from beside him. "Nuh." A hand came out to pat his mouth. "Shush, Jared. Good Jared."

Jared turned his head to look at the person beside him. When he saw that it was Jensen curled up next to him, all mussed and sleepy and soft, he realized he was actually kind of glad to be hungover. It was much harder to freak the fuck out when he was hungover.

"Hi," he said dopily. "You're in my bed."

"Lies," Jensen retorted, cuddling closer without opening his eyes. "You're in my bed."

Jared looked down at the unfamiliar blankets. "Huh."

"You were drunk," Jensen said, answering the question before Jared could even ask it. Maybe Jensen was secretly an oracle. It could happen. "Your house was too far away so I carried you here. But you were heavy so I fell asleep on you."

This recap of events was delivered very matter-of-factly, as though it made perfect rational sense for Jensen to fall asleep on him. Jensen's logic was clearly not Jared's logic.

"Wait, you carried me?"

Jensen lifted his head up at that and flashed Jared a cocky smile. "What can I say, I'm awesome."

"Yes, you are," Jared agreed. His head still pounded unhappily but his eyes were slowly adjusting to the sunlight as he asked, "So did you carry me over the threshold bridal-style or…?"

"You wish," Jensen muttered, snuggling back into the pillows. "I got tired and ended up dragging you inside by your legs. I carried you most of the way here on my shoulders though." He closed his eyes again. "I hate you now, by the way. It was like carrying a giant mutated deer."

Too achy and sleepy and grateful to argue, Jared settled for pressing his face into the curve of Jensen's neck and making the kind of noise he'd imagine a giant mutated deer would make.

Jensen laughed and squirmed, wriggling away from Jared's mouth and repeating, "I hate you."

Yet again, Jared's instinctive response was almost 'I love you' but he bit it back to allow himself a moment of consideration. Jensen was sprawled out next to him, loose-limbed and content, and it was the easiest thing for Jared to reach over to rest his hand on Jensen's hip as he psyched himself up for what he needed to say.

"Hey, Jensen," he said, and swallowed when Jensen's eyes locked on his. "I know this probably isn't the best time," he began awkwardly, "but I've been trying to find the best time for a long time now and I'm not totally convinced it exists. I just- I need to tell you something. Jensen, I-"

The bedroom doors went flying off their hinges with a clatter before Jared could finish speaking, and they both jumped at the bellowed command that followed. 

"Unhand him!"

Scrambling to a sitting position and hurrying to cover themselves with a blanket, Jared and Jensen stared dumbly at the guy who strode through the bedroom door. He was huge and broad and stocky, with thick armor which clanked with every step and a sturdy shield which seemed like it would be more at home in a fight to the death rather than in Jensen's bedroom.

(In Jared's opinion, the two were mutually exclusive. Fights to the death were not allowed to happen in Jensen's bedroom. Especially when Jared was half-naked.)

"Jensen," the armed guy boomed, "I am here to defend your virtue and give you the honor of becoming mine."

Wide-eyed, Jensen looked at Jared. 

Jared had approximately no clue what was happening and so settled for a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

"I said unhand him!" the guy ordered again. Jared's head did not appreciate the yelling.

Apparently neither did Jensen's, since he raised his hand and asked hopefully, "Hey, any chance you could switch to your indoor voice? We're kind of hungover here."

"My apologies, Jensen," the guy said, marginally quieter. It wasn't what Jared would've called an indoor voice but he'd take what he could get. "I was just angry that this scoundrel would dare to defile you. Allow me to flay him for you."

This was said very cheerfully, as though flaying was on par with juggling in terms of casual entertainment value.

Jared tried for a smile. "Hey, man, I don't think flaying's totally necessary in this-"

He was cut off with a yelp when the guy pulled a big, lethal-looking sword from his scabbard and lunged at Jared with a wild roar. 

He caught him by the throat, pinning him flat against the bed and pushing the sword up against his jaw as Jared choked and struggled against the force of the guy's meaty hand crushing his windpipe.

"I will carve his face off for you," the guy said to Jensen, as though he was discussing which stall sold the best fish. "I will cut off his nostrils as punishment for touching you."

"Hey!"

Fighting for breath, Jared was relieved when Jensen's head swam into his bleary vision as he got between the two of them and shoved hard at sword-guy's chest. "Get the fuck off him!" 

Jared might have been hallucinating due to lack of air but he was pretty sure he saw Jensen whack the guy on the nose with a rolled-up scroll. "No cutting anything! Back off!"

Jared gasped for breath when the guy released his throat. He lay there for a moment, holding his sore neck and trying to get his breathing back under control before looking up to see Jensen pushing the guy back away from the bed. Jensen looked furious, which was quite a feat given that he was still clutching a blanket to him to preserve his modesty, and Jared propped himself up on his elbows to hear Jensen yell, "You are not allowed to flay Jared! That is not okay!"

The guy looked confused. "But-"

"No buts," Jensen said firmly. "There is no situation where I will be okay with Jared being flayed."

"I could stab him?" the guy suggested. "I'm an excellent stabber."

"No," he said crossly. "No harming Jared at all." He folded his arms. "Who the fuck are you?"

The guy ducked his head in a respectful nod. "I am Ajax, son of Telamon."

Jensen glanced back over his shoulder for help. Jared just shrugged.

"The great-grandson of Zeus," Ajax added. 

Jared sighed. Fucking Zeus and his fucking swan dick.

Ignoring their reactions, Ajax soldiered on. "I am here to claim you as my own," he said to Jensen, "and to stop you being defiled by this vile miscreant." He paused. "Assuming he has not already defiled you."

Jared looked at the rumpled bed and whispered to Jensen, "Did I defile you?"

"I don't think so?" Jensen whispered back. "You mostly passed out and drooled on my face."

"Oh." Jared's cheeks heated. "Sorry."

"You are undefiled!" Ajax said happily. And loudly. "Now be mine."

"No." 

Ajax seemed taken aback. "But-"

"No," Jensen cut in again. "You don't get to charge into _my_ house, kick down the door of _my_ bedroom, make insane decisions about _my_ future, and try to kill _my_ , uh, Jared." He recovered from the slip and put his hands on his hips. Miraculously the blanket mostly stayed up. "Out. Now."

Jared watched Ajax retreat, muttering something about butchering shifty-looking livestock instead, and slumped back down on the bed once he was out of sight. His headache was now accompanied by the pulse of pain where Ajax's fingers had locked around his neck, and he groaned in self-pity. Hangovers were bad enough without getting attacked by giant warrior dudes before breakfast.

He cracked an eye open as Jensen padded back into the room and flopped back onto the bed.

Jared went still, feeling the awkward silence stretch out between them until they both reached breaking point at the same time.

"What were you-"

"Wow, I guess he-"

Jensen looked over at him. "You first."

"I was just saying I was impressed," Jared admitted. "You're good at shouting at people."

"It's a life skill," Jensen said, relaxing again. "What was it you wanted to tell me before all the door-breaking and attempted choking?"

"Oh." It felt even more inappropriate to say it aloud now that Jensen had already dealt with one would-be suitor that morning and so Jared plastered on a smile. "Nothing important."

Jensen almost sounded disappointed. "You sure?"

"Yeah, it was nothing." Pulling the blankets back up to shoulder-level, Jared yawned and said sleepily, "Y'know, if I wasn't hungover, I totally could've taken him."

Jensen laughed. "Sure, Jared."

"I mean it," he insisted as his eyelids grew heavier. "I would've kicked his ass. Pow."

Sleep claimed him before he could elaborate further on how exactly Ajax would've had his ass handed to him. Both the bed and Jensen were comfortable and warm, and as Jared drifted off again, he sent Artemis a quick prayer that he wouldn't drool this time.

  
**+++**  


A few days later, Jensen showed up with a violent-red sunburn across his cheeks.

Being the good friend he was, Jared applied soothing balm while commiserating over the sun-god's lack of appreciation of personal space.

  
**+++**  


A few days later, Jensen showed up with a bemused look on his face and a delicious-looking pie in his hand.

Being the good friend he was, Jared helped him eat it. He liked that Demeter wasn't above food-related bribery when trying to convince Jensen to marry her.

  
**+++**  


A few days later, Jensen showed up with delicate pink flowers threaded through his hair and shiny gloss coating his lips.

Being the good friend he was, Jared absolutely did not have inappropriate thoughts about Jensen's mouth. He did help pick the flowers out of his hair though, as well as warning Jensen to avoid the wood-nymphs' favorite grove in future.

  
**+++**  


A few days later, Jensen didn't show up.

Being the good friend he was, Jared panicked.

It wasn't like this was the first time Jensen hadn't turned up when they'd arranged to meet. One time before, he'd been distracted by his carvings and had been all smiles and apologies when Jared stopped by his house to find him whittling a human-sized squirrel in the field out back. (It had been a commission for Misha. Jared hadn't questioned it further.)

However, this time when Jared went to check Jensen's house, he found it locked and quiet with no sign of Jensen or any mildly traumatic squirrel carvings.

He hammered on the door. "Jensen! Jensen, you in there?"

The door rattled against the bolt but didn't budge as the house stayed silent, and Jared ran a hand through his hair. Rationally, he knew Jensen could be out somewhere, frolicking in the fields or napping in the shade of a tree or playing with an adorable piglet, but given the gods' current interest in Jensen, he couldn't stop himself worrying that there was a more sinister reason behind Jensen's absence.

Clearly the only sensible thing to do was to break in and check.

Moving around to the side of the house, Jared eyed the window speculatively. It was high, which wasn't a huge problem given Jared's height, but it was also narrow, which posed more of an issue. 

"All right, Jensen," he said under his breath. "You better be in jeopardy right now." He pursed his lips. "Well, mild jeopardy. Nothing beyond a couple of broken toes."

He backed off from the house and squared his shoulders before taking a running leap up to the window. He cackled in triumph when he got high enough to hook his arms through but then concentrated on wiggling his body up the wall and through the gap to get into Jensen's house. To his surprise, he managed to squish his shoulders through the hole in the wall and he kicked his legs to shimmy the rest of the way inside.

Unfortunately, he hadn't considered that diving headfirst through a high window possibly wasn't the safest way into a house. 

The realization did occur to him just as he over-balanced and he flailed wildly in an attempt to get his hands beneath him before he landed nose first on the stone floor.

He collapsed in a heap when his feet came through the window, thankfully avoiding any face-smushing incidents, and he rubbed his head with a groan as he looked around Jensen's house. 

There were no obvious signs of a disturbance and he called again, worried, "Jensen? Can you hear me?"

If Jensen could hear him, he must've been ignoring him, but Jared spun around at the scampering of feet against stone as Icarus came bounding into the room. He made a beeline for the treats he clearly believed Jared was hiding in his ankles, but Jared intercepted him and scooped him up before he could lunge in for the kill.

"Hey there, buddy," he said, patting what he thought was Icarus' head. Since Icarus was currently a squirmy bundle of white curls, he couldn't be totally sure. "Where's Jensen, huh? Where's the nice man who gives you food?"

Icarus basically existed in a state of constant wriggling but Jared could've sworn he wriggled harder at the sound of Jensen's name. Cautiously, Jared lowered him back to the floor and followed at a jog as Icarus scampered away through the house.

Icarus came to an abrupt halt in the middle of Jensen's workshop and bounced in a quick circle before looking up at Jared and wagging his tail.

Despite Icarus' enthusiasm, Jensen wasn't anywhere to be seen.

Baffled, Jared looked around, taking in the wooden statues and implements which cluttered the room. Some were half-finished, with just an arm or a leg emerging from a large block of wood, and some were old, judging by the heap of wooden spoons which sat in a box in the corner. Jensen had always tried to discourage him from looking at his workshop, claiming it was messy and dull, but Jared found himself fascinated by the detail in Jensen's work. And by the unnerving statue of Poseidon cocking his hip in a decidedly sassy fashion. 

He really hoped that was a commission.

Aware that he had more pressing concerns, he scanned the room for clues as to Jensen's whereabouts but paused when his gaze landed on a carved bust tucked up against the far wall. The bust looked oddly familiar and it took Jared a long moment to realize he was looking at a carving of his own face. 

"Huh."

Unfortunately that wasn't the weirdest thing that had happened to him today. Jensen was still gone and Icarus was being entirely unhelpful in locating him, instead scratching furiously at something on the ground.

"What've you got there, boy?" Jared asked, crouching down and peering at the mark on the floor. 

A thick dark line stained the stone, with a second one running parallel a couple of feet away. It looked like the ground had been scorched and Jared pushed his mind towards any explanation which didn't involve Jensen going up in flames. 

Ominous stripes of ash were rarely a good sign and Jared jogged back out to the small altar in the courtyard.

Normally he'd do things properly -- burn some incense, bring a sacrifice, offer the proper rites and honors -- but this was Jensen. He couldn't afford to wait.

Sinking to his knees, he clasped his hand and said quietly, "Hey, Artemis. I know I don't have any of the stuff I'm supposed to have but I'm hoping you'll take an IOU because I could really use some help right now." 

He looked up at the sky, praying for some divine intervention. "Look, I'm sure there are a bunch of other guys who actually did the whole ritual thing right but I'll make it up to you, I swear. I'll do-" He hesitated. "Okay, I can't say I'll do _anything_ because I'm never letting you take me as a date to one of your brother's parties again, but I'll do most things if you just come down and help me." He worried his lip between his teeth. "Please?"

He toppled backwards with an 'oomph' at the flash of light and gust of wind which suddenly filled the room, but when he sat up, he was relieved to see Artemis standing in front of him and rearranging her skirt.

"Hey," he said lamely. "I, uh-"

"Something happened to your boyfriend," she filled in easily. "You have that Jensen-in-peril look on your face."

Jared didn't know what his 'Jensen-in-peril' look was but he wanted to get rid of it. Jensen and peril were not a happy combination.

"Yeah," he said, towering over her as he got back to his feet. "I don't know what happened. I was supposed to meet him tonight but he never showed up. I can't find him anywhere and there are these things on his floor which look like burn marks, which isn't that reassuring."

Artemis' brow crinkled. "Burn marks? Like a dragon?"

"No." He wasn't sure whether to be glad Jensen hadn't been snacked on by a dragon or horrified that he was now imagining _Jensen being snacked on by a dragon_. "No dragon. They were just two short lines a couple of feet apart. Like something hot was resting there, maybe? Something hot and big."

"Oh, come on."

The response didn't come from Artemis and Jared whirled around to face the newcomer.

Aphrodite smiled from where she was leaning against a pillar. "That's so easy it's not even fun."

On Jared's right, Artemis narrowed her eyes. "What do you want?"

To say Artemis and Aphrodite weren't exactly the best of friends was putting it lightly. As far as Jared knew, the official reason for their frosty relationship was professional differences -- Artemis counted a lot of virgins among her worshippers whereas Aphrodite's priorities lay in the opposite direction -- but Jared couldn't help but wonder if there was a little more to their history than that.

He almost wanted to come right out and say it but had yet to come up with a tactful way of asking two temperamental deities if they ever had hate-sex with each other to let off some steam.

Aphrodite took a step forward and batted her eyelashes. "Did you ever think I might be here to help?"

Jared and Artemis answered simultaneously. "No."

Aphrodite did a lot of very enjoyable things but being helpful was rarely one of them.

"Gee, thanks," she muttered. "I'm really feeling the love here."

She turned to leave but Jared stepped forward, too worried about Jensen to turn down whatever help he could find. "Wait, I'm sorry. Please."

Rotating back around, she tossed her hair over her shoulders and looked him up and down. She was almost as tall as Jared with a mass of blonde curly hair, fantastic breasts, and a penchant for borderline-inappropriate robes, but as much fun as their one-time hook-up had been, Jared was too worried about Jensen to spare her much thought.

Aphrodite raised her eyebrows. "Oh, so you do want my help?"

"Do you know where Jensen is?" Jared asked, way past the point of beating around the bush. "There are these marks on the ground but Jensen's not there and I don't know what happened."

She nodded sympathetically. "Hades."

Jared blinked.

"Hades?" Artemis repeated in disbelief. "Since when does he leave his pit?"

"Since he wants to get laid," Aphrodite said. The 'duh' was implied. "It's all over Olympus already." She glanced at Artemis. "I'm surprised you hadn't heard about it yet."

Artemis bristled. "Some of us don't spend our whole day listening to gossip."

"Well, I guess some of us are pretty useless when it comes to finding this guy's boyfriend then," Aphrodite said smugly.

"Uh, he's not actually my boyfriend," Jared said nervously. "We're just friends."

"Oh, wow," she said with a pitying smile. "Are you serious?"

"Is this really necessary?" Artemis said. "Just tell us what you know so Jared can go find Jensen. Did Hades take him?"

"Yep. In that ugly-ass chariot of his," Aphrodite said. "That's what made your scorch marks."

"Wait, Hades stole Jensen? I thought you guys weren't supposed to do anything without his consent?" He looked at Artemis. "You said you talked to them about this."

"I did!" Artemis promised. "It's just that Hades…"

"Is a total recluse," Aphrodite filled in cheerfully. "He spends all his time in the pit with dead people and mutant puppies -- he's not the most socially well-adjusted guy in the pantheon. You ask him to do something and he takes a 'fuck you, I do what I want' approach."

"Awesome," Jared said sarcastically. He looked between the two of them, trying to get to the important matter of rescue rather than discussing just how unhinged Jensen's kidnapper was. "So how do I get Jensen back?"

Artemis and Aphrodite exchanged glances. They weren't possibly-leading-to-hate-sex glances so Jared took that as a bad sign. 

"Jared, I'm sorry," Artemis said softly. "I know you care about Jensen but once mortals go into the Underworld there's no coming back."

Jared frowned. "What about Hercules?"

"He-"

"Or Odysseus."

"That-"

"Or Orpheus."

"Okay, fine," she relented. "It might be possible."

Jared resisted a victory fistpump. Deities didn't typically appreciate when he knew more than they did. "Great," he said. "What do I do?"

"You need to be really careful," Artemis said seriously. "Don't eat anything, don't drink anything, and don't play with anything which looks like it might trap you in the Underworld for all of eternity."

Jared nodded. "No playing. Got it."

"Oh, and don't bang anyone there either," Aphrodite chimed in. "I had a worshipper go once but she hooked up with Charon while she was down there and couldn't get back out. It sucked."

Jared gulped. "So Jensen could be stuck there if Hades-"

"He wouldn't," Aphrodite reassured him. "Okay, yeah, he's the third creepiest person I know but he's more likely to show your boy detailed sketches of the latest torment he's devised instead of actually hurting him."

"Oh. That's good, I guess," Jared said, not totally convinced. The gods were weird. "So how do I get down to the Underworld?"

The two goddesses exchanged more cryptic glances but again it was Artemis who broke the silence, "There's this cave…"

Jared sighed to himself. 

When dealing with the kidnap-happy ruler of the Underworld, mysterious caves did not sound promising.

 

****

+++

Despite his initial concerns that he would be devoured by a ravenous mythical beast with at least five heads, Jared had to admit that the Underworld cave detour wasn't nearly as traumatic as he had anticipated.

Admittedly, it was still a cave, and a fairly intimidating cave at that, but there were no battles to be had or ferrymen to sweet-talk or dead people to fight off with sticks. Once he'd stepped out of the waning sunlight and headed towards the back of the cave with his torch in hand, the cave just kept going, the darkness closing tighter and tighter around him as the path gradually sloped down beneath his feet.

For a place that was supposed to contain souls for all eternity, the Underworld's security was kind of lax.

The fire of his torch flickered and danced in the dark, and Jared peered ahead into the gloom of the tunnel as he kept walking. Maybe Hades would be so impressed by Jared's ability to walk through a creepy cave that he'd just release Jensen right away, no questions asked.

Lost in his thoughts, Jared enjoyed his completely implausible daydream right up until a low growl echoed through the tunnel.

Jared gulped.

"Hello?" he called. He was on his own, in a tunnel to the Underworld, with just a torch and a dagger to defend himself. The growly thing was going to find him eventually so it made sense to be polite. "Is anyone there?"

The growl rolled out again and Jared edged forward, trying in vain to see past the light afforded by the torch. "Hell-"

His second greeting trailed off into fearful silence when the blackness seemed to move in front of him. It shifted and faded as something moved forward into the light from the flames, and Jared froze when he saw two large black paws planted on the ground. 

He followed them upwards, barely able to make out the body of the creature, and swallowed hard at the sight of three canine heads emerging from the gloom.

Clearly Jared's trip to the Underworld had been severely lacking in peril.

"Hey, boy," he said softly, trying to imagine he was talking Sadie down from tackling some shrubbery instead of a talking a giant, three-headed dog down from eating his insides. "Who's a good boy? Just take it easy. I'm not gonna hurt you."

The dog -- which Jared assumed was Cerberus, unless Hades had a secret litter of three-headed dogs -- moved forward slowly until Jared could see its whole body in the torchlight. It was smaller than the legends had suggested but still sizeable, with its noses at the height of Jared's chest and its teeth nearly the size of Jared's fingers. Two of its heads were facing forward, red-brown eyes fixed on Jared, while the third looked around at the rocky tunnel.

Unsure if any of the heads could understand human speech, Jared held his hands up and offered it a smile. "See? Totally harmless." He gave Cerberus a hopeful smile. "I just wanna go rescue my best friend from possibly being molested by your boss. I have excellent motives here."

The head on the left let out a growl and Jared leapt back as it snapped its teeth in his direction before the center head turned to it with a sharp yap.

Jared had no idea what they were saying to each other but he was pleased to see the left head had stopped trying to eat his face. Baby steps.

"Can I get through?" he asked, and then let out a small shriek when the head on the right lunged down, close enough that Jared could feel its giant wet nose against his arm. Its eyes glinted in the firelight and Jared held his breath when it opened its mouth to reveal two rows of sharp white teeth.

It licked him.

Baffled that he wasn't being eaten, Jared stumbled a little when Cerberus' right head bumped up against his hand before nuzzling up to his stomach with a pleased rumble. He gave it a tentative pet, stroking over the smooth fur and the soft black ears, before glancing up at the other two heads, which were eyeing the first one with suspicion.

Petting the first head more enthusiastically, Jared smiled at the other two heads as he scritched behind the first one's ears. "Yes, you're a good boy. You're not going to eat me, no, you're not."

He sighed in relief when the middle head seemed to yield too, pushing its head forward and lowering its neck to enable better petting. The one on the left still seemed reluctant but with the other two already calmed, it took less time for it to stop baring its teeth as it leaned in for pats and scritches too.

By Jared's calculations, the right head was the happily dumb equivalent of Harley, the middle head had similar bossy and leader-like qualities to Sadie, and the left head seemed to like biting things almost as much as Icarus did.

Thankful that he'd left Icarus in the house instead of bringing him along -- he would've either bitten Cerberus or teamed up with Cerberus to bite Jared -- Jared had a mini internal celebration when the right head sank to the ground in blissful relaxation as a result of being petted. Given that they shared a body, the other two heads lowered as well, with the one of the left letting out a wide yawn, and Jared grinned in triumph. 

He was a totally competent rescuer. Just as long as it involved petting dogs.

Taking it slow, he continued to pet Cerberus' heads as he inched past the giant dog. It looked calm and content as it settled back against the wall of the cave, the head on the right already fast asleep, and Jared gave the other two a final pat before backing off down to the tunnel. 

Much to his relief, Cerberus didn't follow.

Holding his torch aloft, Jared hurried onward. He was delighted that he hadn't been eaten but couldn't help being slightly judgmental of Cerberus' abilities as a guard dog. 

(However, he supposed that, being the guardian of the Underworld, Cerberus didn't get much affection and so was particularly susceptible to pats.)

Continuing on through the tunnels, Jared was in the middle of working out the best way to tell Jensen about his valiant and heroic defeat of Cerberus when the floor opened up beneath his feet.

"Wh-"

Before he fell, he just had time to consider that maybe training a three-headed guard-dog had been a waste of Hades' time, given that the trapdoor was much more effective at killing him.

Tumbling through the hole in the floor, Jared fought to stop himself falling as he landed hard on a rocky slope and immediately began to slide downward, sending the torch skittering out of his grasp. The ground was scorched and dusty and the rocks crumbled under his fingers as he scrabbled for purchase but he couldn't halt his descent fast enough. The slope dropped away out in front of him, plummeting down into a wide, dark pit, and Jared's attempts to stop himself got more and more desperate as he skidded ever closer to the edge.

He was pretty sure his heart stopped when his feet swung out over the pit but he grabbed desperately onto the edge of a rock before his upper body could follow his legs' lead.

He hung there, clinging onto the rock and kicking out in the hopes of hauling himself back up, but he couldn't find the leverage to pull himself up. Heat radiated from the pit, sticky and suffocating, and Jared felt sweat trickle down from his hair as he opened his mouth to yell, "Help! Someone help me!"

No-one came. 

The heat rose behind him, soaking him in sweat and Jared fought to keep his hands from slipping on the rock as he shouted again, "Is anyone there? You don't need to be alive -- if you're dead but have opposable thumbs and decent upper body stength, I could really use your help right now! Please!"

There was still no sign of life above the rim of the pit and Jared gave another futile kick as his hands slipped further. He needed to go rescue Jensen; he didn't want to fail and die just because he had sweaty palms.

"Help-"

"Hey!"

Jared jumped and almost fell at the sound of a voice from above him. He squinted up past the sweat that dripped into his eyes but couldn't make out the face of the guy who leaned down to grab his wrist.

"C'mon, kid," the guy said gruffly. 

Jared wasn't about to argue with the dude who was saving him from plummeting to a very sweaty death and so he let him haul him back up over the ledge before he dropped to the ground with a groan. "Thank you," he panted. "Man, that was awesome timing."

He squinted up at the guy again. He looked human, thankfully, with dark hair and a beard speckled with grey, but Jared frowned when he saw that he was dressed in leathery armor. 

"Not to sound ungrateful, what with the whole life-saving thing and all," he said between breaths, "but who are you?"

The guy held out a hand to pull Jared to his feet. "The name's Jeff. I guess you could say I'm Hades' head of security."

He thumbed over his shoulder and Jared gulped. 

A towering rockface ran alongside the pit and away from the slope Jared had just tumbled down. A bridge crossed over the center of the chasm, leading to the different lands of the Underworld on one side, but the other side of the bridge led directly to the doors of Hades' palace. 

The palace was carved into the rock, solid towers and columns snaking up through the crevasses and cracks in the wall. It was lit by the glow of fire from torches lining the walls and the bridge, but was still cloaked in enough shadow that Jared's stomach tightened at the thought of walking in through the solid wooden doors and demanding Jensen back. 

Not that he wouldn't do it -- there was no way he was leaving without Jensen -- but he needed to psych himself up before any further acts of heroism.

He turned back to Jeff with a nervous smile. "So I'm hoping that you're not actually planning to kill me or throw me in Underworld jail or anything, since you just went to the trouble of saving my life?"

Jeff shrugged. "Mostly I didn't want to have to pull you back out of the pit to put you in your actual resting place. Giant death pits always sound good in theory but they're kind of impractical."

"So you're going to kill me anyway?"

Jeff gestured around him. "You're in the Underworld, kid. It's not built for visitors."

"I know," Jared said, holding his hands up. "I'm not trying to mess things up for anyone -- I just came to get my friend back."

Jeff sighed. "Let me guess, this friend of yours is really special?"

"Well, yeah."

"And she doesn't deserve to be here?"

"It's a he," Jared corrected, confused about where this was going, "but no, he doesn't deserve this."

"So you want to take him back with you," Jeff continued, sounding bored, "because he's important and you love him and you can't live without him, right?"

"Um, that's kind of personal," Jared said, taken aback. He couldn't exactly deny it though and admitted, "But yeah, pretty much." He looked up at the palace. "So can I go get him or…?"

"Son, do you really think Hades employs me to let people skip on out of the Underworld with their deceased significant others?" Jeff sounded much less sympathetic to Jared's plight as he folded his arms. "I am not here to facilitate zombie uprisings."

"Got it." Zombie uprisings did not seem like the hallmark of a successful career. "No zombies." He gave him a hopeful smile. "Would it help if I said he isn't actually deceased?"

"I don't-" Jeff paused. "Wait, what?"

"He's alive," Jared said with more confidence this time. "Or at least I think he is. There were scorchmarks in his house from Hades' chariot and Aphrodite said that Hades had kidnapped him but she didn't say anything about him being dead-"

"Oh, man." Jeff sighed. "You're here about Jensen, aren't you?"

"Yes!" Jared said, a little too eagerly. "Yes. Is he here? Is he okay? Can I rescue him?" He hesitated. "Are you still going to kill me?"

"I'm not going to kill you," Jeff said. He seemed uncomfortably disappointed. "Yeah, Jensen's here. The boss had him locked up inside last time I checked."

Jared perked up. "Great! I should go get him out."

He turned towards the palace but was stopped by Jeff stepping in front of him and putting a hand on his chest. He was very close. Jared wondered if he was going to kiss him.

"I shouldn't be doing this," Jeff said quietly. It did nothing to dispel Jared's kiss predictions. "Hades is a decent boss most of the time -- I mean, I get how important it is to stop people dropping by to retrieve their third-cousins-twice-removed from the netherworld -- but I can't say he's in the right here." He scrubbed a hand over his beard. "I can't do much but I'll help you get in to see your friend."

He stepped away and headed for the palace. Jared experienced a split-second's disappointment that there had been no kissing before his mind processed Jeff's promise to help him save Jensen, and he bounded after him with a broad smile on his face. "Seriously? Thank you so much, dude."

Jeff raised his eyebrows.

"Uh, sir," Jared amended. 

He had to skip a little to keep up as Jeff led him off the slope and towards the shadowy castle pushing out from the rocks. 

"This is a one-off," Jeff said firmly. "You don't get to come down here and assume that because I helped you once, I'll help you again. I don't care if your boy gets beaten to death by a marauding sealion the second you get back up top; I am not getting involved in this shit again."

"Why are you getting involved in it now? Not that I'm complaining," he said quickly. "Just making conversation."

"Because I have a problem with my boss kidnapping non-dead people for fun," Jeff said. "I'm not crazy about him kidnapping dead people either but Sisyphus had it coming, y'know? But Jensen seems like a good kid."

"You talked to him?"

"Did you miss the part where I'm Hades' head of security? Of course I talked to the guy he wants to keep secured. My job doesn't just revolve around saving dumbasses from plummeting to their deaths."

Jared opted not to contest the 'dumbass' label. "How is he?" he asked. "Is he hurt?"

"How about you go see for yourself?" Reaching the palace doors, Jeff waved his hand over the handles to send the doors swinging open of their own accord as they both stepped inside. 

The inside of the palace was as nerve-wracking as the outside, all shadowed corners and more intricately carved pillars, but Jared steeled himself against his creeping fears. He really didn't want Jeff thinking he was scared of architecture.

Jeff seemed nonplussed by the looming stone creatures which watched them from the tops of the columns as he said, "Straight down the hallway, through the door with the giant walrus on it."

Jared opened his mouth.

"Don't ask."

Jared closed it again.

"Oh, also," Jeff added, "if he asks, you found your own way inside. I was not involved in any capacity. I was busy fishing some poor bastard out of the Lake of Eternal Knee Injuries. Got it?"

Jared nodded.

"You can talk, kid."

"I got it." He smiled. "Thanks, man."

"Don't mention it." Jeff narrowed his eyes. "Seriously. Don't. I'll know."

Giving Jared one last warning glare, he headed back out of the palace, leaving Jared to wander through the hallway in search of the walrus door.

It wasn't hard to find.

The door was as intimidating as the rest of the palace, which Jared assumed was kind of Hades' thing, and he tried to ignore the walrus' malevolent stare as he cracked the door open and peered inside.

His heart sank when he saw Hades standing to the side of the throne room, dressed in long black robes and working on something Jared couldn't see.

His heart rose again, however, when he followed Hades' gaze across the room to where Jensen was sitting on one of the two thrones, looking displeased but alive.

Unfortunately his heart then sank for a second time when he took in the thick chains wrapped around Jensen's wrists and ankles, making escape all but impossible.

It was a very stressful time for Jared's heart.

Given that a giant Titan was unable to break the gods' chains to stop his own liver being pecked out, Jared was aware that he stood very little chance of breaking them to rescue a guy he wasn't actually dating yet, and so he settled on a different approach.

"Hi." He knocked firmly on the door and inched further through the gap as Hades whirled around to face him. "Hey. How's it going?"

Across the room, Jensen tried to say something through the gag that had been stuffed in his mouth. All that came out was muffled noise and Jared hoped it wasn't anything really important, like a declaration of love or a heads-up that his hair was on fire.

Hades was up close to him in an instant, fast enough that Jared felt as though someone had fired up a furnace right next to him. He flattened himself against the door and tried to ignore the sweat beading on his forehead as Hades demanded, "Who are you? How did you get in here?"

He sounded like a teenage girl who'd just caught Jared snooping under her bed: high-pitched and irate. Jared reminded himself that Hades was a very powerful god and that he probably shouldn't laugh.

"Hi," he said again. "I'm Jared. I-"

"Oh, so _you're_ Jared." Hades sounded smug, like he'd just solved a puzzle. He stepped back and glanced over his shoulder at Jensen. "Guess he showed up after all, sweetheart."

In light of the gag and chains, Jared was impressed by the force of Jensen's glower.

However, Hades didn't seem fazed as he turned back to Jared and said, "You shouldn't be here. Jensen's happy with me now."

Jared didn't think he needed to point out just how unhappy Jensen looked at his current predicament, and so settled for the response, "How about we let Jensen pick?"

Hades' smile was unsettling. He wasn't ugly but didn't fit the traditionally handsome Olympian stereotype either. His eyes were a little too small and his skin was a little too tight and when he smiled, Jared was reminded of the mouse he'd kept as a pet when he was a kid.

"Absolutely," he said smoothly. "Just give us a few more days together and I'm sure Jensen will be happy to make his choice."

His eyes darted to the left and Jared looked over at the table to see a sliced-open pomegrante lying on the surface. 

"You're trying to feed him?" he asked angrily. "You're trying to trap him down here with you?"

If Hades had a mustache, Jared was pretty sure he would've been twirling it right then but as it was, he settled for a smirk. "I'm just offering him some light refreshment. He should be thinking clearly when he makes his choice."

Jensen yelled something through his gag which sounded suspiciously like _I pick Jared! I pick Jared!_. 

Hades ignored him.

"Look," Jared said, trying to stay calm, "we both know you'd be in the middle of your wedding by now if he'd had anything to eat or drink here. You don't have any grounds for keeping him here so please just let me take him home."

Jensen nodded vehemently. With the gag pulled through his mouth, he looked like an enthusiastic rabbit.

Hades shrugged as he wandered back behind the throne to play with Jensen's hair. "He'll taste something eventually. I've ruled down here for centuries -- I know how to be patient."

Helpless, Jared watched Jensen struggle to twist away from Hades' hands on his head. When that failed, he tried to bite him through the gag, which went some way to explaining where Icarus got his habits from.

"C'mon, man," Jared pushed. "It's obvious he doesn't want to be here. I know being in charge of the Underworld is a sucky job but there's gotta be a few nymphs and priests out there who are into that. I mean, Sarpedon will bang anything with a pulse." He reconsidered. "Maybe even things without a pulse."

Hades seemed to consider about that and Jared pleaded, "Either way, you don't need to keep Jensen here, man. You're already stuck ruling the Underworld -- do you really want to be stuck with an unwilling boyfriend too?" 

Hades pursed his lips in thought then petted Jensen on the head. "Yes. He's pretty."

Jensen growled. 

Jared couldn't exactly argue with that. "Okay, yeah," he said, "he is pretty, but forcing him into being with you is creepy. Really, really creepy."

Hades cleared his throat and gestured to the cavernous throne room, tastefully decorated with scenes of wild animals and mangled corpses. 

"Okay, I guess being creepy isn't a problem for you." Seeing the scowl on Jensen's face, Jared opted to take a more aggressive approach. "Look, I didn't want it to come to this, mostly because you're a god and could kill me faster than I could scream, but you can't keep him."

Hades looked shocked, as though he couldn't believe Jared was actually saying that to his face. By Jared's count, that made two of them.

Making the most of his courage before it deserted him, Jared ploughed on, "There's nothing to let you keep him here. He's not dead, he didn't eat or drink anything, and I'm pretty sure he hasn't slept with anyone here, so I'm taking him home with me." He took a breath. "Please don't kill me."

Jensen made a muffled sound which Jared took as agreement for the lack of killing.

Fortunately, Hades didn't seem inclined to commence smiting as he looked between Jared and Jensen and asked curiously, "Is he yours then?" He looked hopeful. "Can you give him to me?"

Ignoring Jensen's noise of outrage, Jared shook his head. "No and no."

Hades' shoulders slumped. "Fine," he said huffily, "you can take him." Before Jared could feel too relieved, he added, "But you only get to keep him if you follow my instructions to get out. If you make it, he stays with you, but if either of you screw up, he comes straight back down to me. For good." He flashed him a rodenty smile. "Deal?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Nope."

Jared sighed. All he wanted to do was go get a drink in the tavern with Jensen and possibly declare his undying love for him. Surely that wasn't too much to ask?

"What do we need to do?"

"I'll send you back up through the Gates of Horn."

"Hor-" Jared turned his question into a cough upon receiving a scathing look from Hades. "Sorry. Got some dust in my throat. Please continue."

"Jensen will be right behind you," Hades said, as though he were imparting some great wisdom and not dictating what were essentially deranged party games. "First, you must not speak to him, touch him, or turn back to look at him on the way up or he'll return to me forever."

Privately, Jared judged Hades' lack of originality. He could at least come up with _new_ deranged party games.

"Wait," he said, thinking this through, "how do I know you'll even send him up behind me? I could just go the whole way back to the, uh, Overworld and find out that you kept Jensen here the whole time."

Jensen gave him a nod and what passed for a smile. Obviously he approved of Jared's suspicions. Hades was not exactly an unshady guy.

"Fine," Hades relented, "you can talk to him. But no looking and no touching until you reach the riverside at the top." He smoothed his hair down and smirked at Jared. "You must both pass through all five rivers to get back to the land of the living. If you fail to cross or if you touch each other at any point, Jensen will stay with me and you will probably die."

Jared got the impression that the five rivers of the Underworld were not a place for splashy fun times but nodded anyway. "So I can't look at him until we get to the rivers and I can't touch him until we get across the rivers, but after that, you'll leave him alone?"

"Yes," Hades agreed. "If you complete the journey, I'll leave him alone. I swear upon the Shrieking Lagoon of Terror."

Jared looked at him blankly.

"That's my favorite lagoon," he clarified and then held out his hand. "Do we have a deal?"

His hand was warm under Jared's, like there were embers hidden beneath his skin, but Jared shook anyway. "Deal."

Hades smiled. "Excellent." 

He clicked his fingers and Jensen's chains fell to the ground with a clang. Before Jared could ask if he was okay, Jensen had thrown away the gag and was on his feet and lunging at Hades with the shout, "You son of a bitch!"

Hades disappeared with a pop before Jensen's hands could close around his throat and Jared spun around to see him reappear on the far side of the throne room near a small wooden door. Jensen didn't seem fazed as he charged again, aiming more threats and insults in Hades' direction, but Jared caught him around the waist before he could get too far and dragged him backwards. "Whoa, slow down there, champ."

"I'm going to kill him," Jensen said, flailing uselessly in Jared's arms. "He kidnapped me!"

Jared shifted his grip higher as Jensen struggled. He'd made it the whole way down to the Underworld to save him -- he didn't want to accidentally elbow him in the jewels during the rescue process. "He sucks," Jared agreed, "but he's a god, Jensen. I don't think you can kill him."

"Then I want to hit him in the face a lot," Jensen said. "He _kidnapped_ me, Jared."

As much as hitting Hades in the face sounded like a valid plan, Jared wanted to get out of there alive and so spoke quietly in Jensen's ear, "I don't blame you for being mad but we need to get out of here without him setting any parts of us on fire. I don't think you want to be stuck down here as his forever-boyfriend, right?"

Jensen reluctantly stopped struggling and planted his feet back on the ground. "No."

"Awesome."

"Gentlemen," Hades interrupted with a flourish, "I believe this is your exit."

He was gesturing to the wooden door, which was now open to reveal animal horns curving together to form a tall, narrow arch. A rocky staircase rose up beyond it, leading up to the five rivers and then hopefully to freedom, and Jared gave Jensen's shoulder one last squeeze.

He stepped out ahead of him, wanting to be sure he didn't look back or touch him once they'd passed through the gate. (He assumed from the lack of gloating on Hades' part that looking and touching were a-okay within the confines of the throne room.) He heard Jensen's footsteps behind him as he headed for the exit and he squared his shoulders, uncomfortably aware of the dangers of looking behind him.

Hades flashed him one last unnerving smile. "I'd wish you two good luck," he said as Jared passed him, "but since I'm hoping for your deaths, I feel like that would be a little disingenuous."

Jared couldn't look back to answer but smiled when he heard Jensen's parting mutter.

"I hope a cyclops eats your face."

  
**+++**  


"I hate him."

Jared trudged up the stairs. "I know."

"I hate his stupid creepy nose." Jensen kicked a step. "And his eyes and his mouth and his freakish skinny fingers. All of him is bad."

"I know."

"His breath smells like turnips," Jensen added. Apparently the insults weren't stopping any time soon. "Warm, rotting turnips. And then he gagged me so I couldn't even tell him to make his mouth go away."

"Asshole," Jared said sympathetically. Now that Jensen was definitely alive and unmolested and quasi-free, Jared mostly found his complaints endearing. "Did he hurt you or did his diabolical plan just involving breathing on your face?"

"No, he didn't hurt me," Jensen said from behind him. "He just showed up in his asshat chariot, tossed me over his asshat shoulder, and brought me to his asshat rock palace."

"So what I'm getting from this is that Hades is an asshat?"

"Shut up." Jensen paused to catch his breath as they kept climbing and then asked, "Is Icarus okay? He was barking when Hades showed up but I was too busy trying to not get kidnapped to see what happened to him."

"You kind of failed on that front, man," Jared teased.

Jensen laughed. "Screw you. I'll get Hades to abduct you next time, see how you like it."

Jared was confident that he would not enjoy being kidnapped. There would possibly be crying and begging involved. 

"Icarus is fine," he told him. "I gave him some food and left him with Artemis at your place. He is safe and happy and trauma-free." He paused. "Well, free of any recent trauma. I don't know what my ankles did to him in the past but I think he's still working through his issues there."

He could tell Jensen was smiling when he said, "I'm really sorry about the whole ankle thing. He doesn't do it to anyone else."

"I'll take it as a sign of esteem and affection then." He fought back the instinct to look over his shoulder to check on Jensen and kept heading upwards on aching legs as he asked more seriously, "You sure you're okay? He did have you chained up down there."

"Only because I kept trying to get out," Jensen said. "Apparently his head of security has more to do than stop me climbing out of windows. Also I'm at least sixty percent more likely to sleep with a guy after he ties me up, tries to forcefeed me fruit, and then monologues at me for hours."

"Wow," Jared said with fake surprise, "never knew you were into that stuff, man."

"I'm a dark horse," Jensen deadpanned. "Neigh."

Jared grinned. "You know, I can always turn around and let you stay down there if you want. I mean, the guy got you a throne. The most you're gonna get from me is a drink at the tavern."

"Jared, if you even think about turning around and sending me back down to him, I am going to kill you," he said with conviction. "Probably myself too but definitely you first. There is no way I'm spending eternity with that… that assface."

"Assface?" Jared smirked. "Gee, I'm glad the kidnapping didn't affect your razor-sharp wit."

"Hey, some god just tried to make me his Underworld bride," Jensen defended. "Cut me some slack."

"I'm sorry, I promise not to malign your insults in future," Jared said with a grin, "and I promise not to turn around and doom you to an eternity with assface down there."

"Correct answer," Jensen replied. Jared's legs hurt as he continued up the stairs and he slowed his pace to catch his breath when Jensen spoke again, sounding more serious this time, "Thank you for coming down to find me, Jared."

It was really, really hard not to look over his shoulder to see the expression on Jensen's face but Jared kept his eyes forward and shrugged. "No problem. It's not like I could just leave you there."

"I mean it," Jensen said. "You went to the Underworld to help me. That's going way beyond putting balm on my sunburn or picking flowers out of my hair. Thank you."

"Don't mention it," he said before looking up sharply.

The staircase was lit by the steady flicker of torches on the walls but Jared blinked as his eyes adjusted to a brighter light streaming down the stairs up ahead. 

"On second thoughts, maybe don't thank me yet," he said, squinting into the light and hoping it signaled the end of their climb. "If we actually make it out of this alive, you can buy me a very big drink."

"I will buy you all the drinks you can fit in that giant body of yours," Jensen promised. "I won't even complain about having to carry your drunk ass home next time."

"You're an excellent friend."

"I try." There was a pause while Jensen caught his breath. "Fuck, there are a lot of stairs."

"I think we're nearly there," Jared said hopefully. The light at the end of the giant, stair-filled tunnel was getting closer, and Jared kept trudging up the uneven steps, feeling his thighs burn and chest tighten with exhaustion. From the breathing behind him, Jensen was equally tired from the climb and it took all Jared had not to just drop flat on his ass as soon as the ground levelled out in front of him.

"Finally," Jensen said with relief and Jared smiled.

Staying upright, he tried to control his breathing as he staggered out of the dark staircase and scanned the area for the presence of the riverbank which would finally allow him to look back at Jensen. The steps brought them out into yet another cave -- after this, Jared would be happy to never see a rock again in his life -- but while the Underworld had been gloomy and intimidating, the morning sunlight that flooded this cave was a welcome relief.

It was wide, wider than Jared's entire house, and long enough that he couldn't actually see what lay in the sunshine beyond the mouth of the cave. The five rivers stood between the stairs and the exit, filling the cave with the sound of rushing water as they flowed through channels cut deep into the cave walls. They were broad and strong and the opposite of soothing, and so Jared decided to deal with them later.

"Jens-"

Jared turned around, ready to finally get a good look at him now that they'd made it up the stairs, but was hit by a burst of paralysing panic when Jensen was nowhere to be seen.

"Jensen?!"

"Right here." 

Jared turned another ninety degrees to the right to find Jensen sitting on the floor. His face was pink from the exertion of the climb but he smiled up at him. "Deep breaths, man." Jensen looked down at his still-visible hands. "Huh, guess I didn't vanish after all."

Unable to wrap Jensen in a bear-hug like he wanted to, Jared settled for half-hearted chiding. "What, you couldn't stay upright for another five seconds so I didn't freak out?"

"Sorry," Jensen said, looking up at him with big, innocent eyes. "I was tired."

"Don't-" He glared at him. "Stop giving me that face. That's cheating."

Jensen's expression relaxed into a smile again and Jared found himself smiling too as Jensen pulled himself back to his feet. 

"I guess we made it?" Jensen said. "I'd celebrate, man, but I'm not sending myself back to the Underworld just because of one high-five."

"Sound plan," Jared agreed, pressing his hands against his sides to resist the urge to touch Jensen. "Imaginary high-five?"

Jensen glanced over at him with a grin. "Imaginary high-five."

Jared may or may not have pictured an imaginary hug and some light imaginary making-out in addition to the high-five as he held Jensen's gaze but he cleared his throat when he looked back out at the waiting rivers.

"So…"

"They don't look that scary," Jensen said unconvincingly. "Maybe it'll just be like the stairs, except horizontal."

Jared raised his eyebrows. 

"Shush," Jensen said. He raised his arm to punch him on the shoulder. "I'm trying to be reassuring here."

His arm came down and Jared was almost too late to jump out of the way with the sharp warning, "Hey!"

Jensen's eyes went wide at the near miss and the smile disappeared from his lips as his face went slack. "Oh, god." He stepped back from Jared. "I- I didn't even think."

"We just need to stay away from each other," Jared said, feeling any confidence he had begin to slip away. They were never going to make it across five magical death rivers, let alone make it across without touching each other. "It'll be okay."

Jensen ran a hand through his hair and looked out at the rivers. "Yeah," he repeated quietly, "it'll be okay. We got through that flood outside Corinth, we can get through this, right?"

Jared swallowed past the lump in his throat as he looked down at the rushing waters of the river. "Sure," he lied. "We can totally…"

He trailed off. False reassurances were pointless when all he could picture was the two of them dying there in that cave, so Jared decided to make the most of the time he had left.

"I'm in love with you."

Jensen's eyebrows shot up while his lips quirked up at the corners, like he wasn't sure whether or not to laugh at the joke, but Jared repeated seriously, "I'm in love with you, Jensen."

It felt absurdly good to say it out loud, like some awkward knot inside him had been finally cut loose, but his own satisfaction was tempered by the look of shock on Jensen's face. 

"You- How-"

If this had been any other circumstances, Jared would've been hoping for Jensen to say it back. As it was, the threat of impending doom outweighed his concerns about reciprocation, and he managed a genuine smile when he said, "Sorry for throwing it out there like that. I just wanted to say it before we died."

Jensen looked stunned. "Jared, man, I- I don't even know how I'm supposed to react to that."

"Don't worry about it," Jared said. The sting of disappointed rejection was there but it was buried deep under the buzz of courage and adrenaline as he looked over at Jensen with a wink. "You can react if we survive."

He had already made his leap when Jensen shouted, "No!"

The jump took him almost a third of the way across the water and Jared tried to keep his head above the surface when he dropped down into the river. The cold stream closed around him, making him gasp and shiver, but he was relieved to find that it was shallower than he'd anticipated, with the water only coming up to his chest.

"Jared!"

He turned around to see Jensen standing on the riverbank and he beckoned him in. "C'mon, it's not that bad!" 

For a magic death-river, it really wasn't as terrible as Jared had been anticipating.

"Jared, that river's Acheron." Jensen gestured to a wooden sign by the river, which Jared had missed in his eagerness to plunge to his possible doom.

"Oh." Jared bounced up and down in the water to test it for doominess but came up blank. "What's Acheron?"

Jensen's hands went to his hips. "Didn't you pay any attention to your lessons?"

"Not really."

Jensen rolled his eyes. "Acheron's the river of sorrow." He looked uncertain. "Does it feel sorrowful?"

Jared bounced some more. "Not exactly. My knees feel kind of shaky but we did just climb a giant staircase." He started backing up towards the opposite riverbank. "Come on in, it's fine."

He continued his progress across the river as Jensen sat down on the bank and slid carefully into the water. It was a little higher on him, bobbing up against his shoulders as he began to wade across, and Jared smiled. "See? It's not that-"

Instead of the word 'bad' coming out, a mouthful of water went in as Jared lost his footing. He slipped under the surface but scrambled to push himself back up a second later when he heard shrieking as soon as his ears went underwater.

"Jared!"

The shrieking settled to the noise of quiet sobs when he surfaced again, and he shook his head, trying to clear the water from his ears. His chest felt tight all of a sudden, and he let out a hiccuping sob of his own as Jensen got closer. 

"Are you okay?"

Tears began trickling down his face but Jared nodded anyway. "I'm f-f-fine," he said between hiccups.

Jensen looked worried. "Jared, you're crying."

"I k-k-know!" he yelled. Evidently his dip underwater had given him a lot of emotions. He dissolved into tears again as he plodded onwards. "Shit, w-why can't I stop crying?"

"It's the river of sorrow," Jensen pointed out again, being careful to keep his head above water as they crossed. "I guess sticking your head in it makes you cry?"

"My knees are still shaking," Jared said with a wet sniffle.

"Mine too," Jensen said. "The water must be affecting them."

"We should get out of h-here." Jared wiped his nose and let out an embarrassingly loud wail when more water splashed in his mouth. He'd just declared his love for Jensen; ideally he would've liked to not cry like a toddler directly afterwards. 

The thought just made him more depressed and tears rolled down his face as he plodded on through the water. "It feels like m-my whole body is crying," he said miserably. "My dick is weeping right now."

Jensen looked torn between sympathy and judgment. Jared couldn't blame him.

"We're nearly there," Jensen promised, walking at Jared's side but out of touching distance. "Think happy thoughts. Think about how glad Sadie and Harley are going to be to have you back."

When considering his impending death, Jared had almost forgotten about his dogs and he cried harder as fresh sobs overtook him at the thought of Sadie and Harley being abandoned in his house. True, they'd find a way out and steal enough food to feed all the kings in Greece but still, it was very tragic.

"Crap," Jensen said with a sigh. "Uh, okay, no thinking about dogs. Think about that night at the tavern when we were spending Zeus' golden shower money."

Jared wept. "That makes you sound like a prostitute who let Zeus pee on you for money."

"You're not helping."

Jared couldn't hold back more tears. "I'm s-s-sorry."

"Oh, c'mon, man, don't cry," Jensen said. "I didn't mean it." He took a breath and plastered on a smile. "Happy thoughts, okay? Think of that evening in the woods when we were singing that battle ode and somehow it ended up being about you armwrestling a chimera."

Thinking back to their enjoyable, if slightly confusing, campfire rendition, Jared smiled through his tears. "That was good."

"Exactly," Jensen agreed. "That was awesome. Or how about that time we ran into that army and you pretended to be a dancing girl so we could get away?"

Jared nodded between sniffs. "They really liked my dancing."

"They really liked your ass," Jensen corrected. "You have a great ass, dude."

Jared beamed. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Jensen teased. "Oh, or how about that time we tried to sail to Egypt when we were little kids? Remember that?"

"We stole a tiny boat and dragged it down to the lake," Jared said. "Y-you wanted to be captain. You had a hat." He smiled at the memory of eight-year-old Jensen wearing a too-big hat and brandishing a wooden sword. "We got bored after an hour on the lake and decided to be divers instead."

"Except you couldn't swim yet," Jensen said and Jared clung on tight to the happy memory. "So you ended up being a handsome prince and I ended up being a dolphin who rescued you." He grinned. "Man, I have no idea how we survived this long."

He reached the other bank ahead of Jared and hauled himself out with some difficulty, while Jared smiled wider at the sight of Jensen's bare legs flailing in the air. Jensen's legs definitely lent themselves to happy thoughts.

"See," Jensen said proudly, "you made it."

He stepped back as Jared pulled himself up out of the river. It felt like a large, angsty cloak was slipping off him as he freed himself from the water, leaving him lighter and happier when he stood up and shook his wet hair. 

He wiped the remaining tears from his eyes and shot Jensen an apologetic smile. "Sorry."

Jensen waved it away. "Don't worry about it." He paused. "You're done crying though, right? I'm really not great at comforting people, especially when hugs are off the table."

"I'm good." Jared licked a drop of water off his lips and shuddered through another sob before amending, "I'm good as long as I don't get any of it in my mouth."

"Maybe don't walk backwards across the river next time," Jensen suggested.

Jared flushed pink. "Duly noted."

He flushed even pinker at the fond smile that was directed his way, but he cleared his throat and straightened his waterlogged tunic as he focused on the task ahead. He could moon over Jensen's smiles to his heart's content once they survived the next four rivers.

"So," he began, as cheerfully as he could manage when he had literal drops of sorrow running down his back, "what's next?"

  
**+++**  


After the river of sorrow came the river of fire.

Despite Jared's insistence that a river of fire was basically the opposite of a river and that Hades was a cheating cheater who cheated, he'd agreed to cross it anyway. It was about as excruciatingly painful as he would've imagined a river of fire to be, but when he pulled himself out of the scalding water, he was relieved to find that he was free of physical burns.

His skin still felt as though it had been flambéed by a very thorough dragon but as he lay on the ground, sweating and gasping through the pain, he figured he'd take the bright sides where he could find them. 

He just wished his ass wasn't quite so hot.

  
**+++**  


After the river of fire came the river of ice.

Unlike the fire, the ice river didn't sound too bad in theory -- Jared had taken enough swims in cold water over the years -- but in practice it was an unwelcome shock to his overheated body. It took all he had to make it across on cramping, shaking legs, and if he and Jensen hadn't had each other for encouragement, he was pretty sure they'd have given in and sunk beneath the surface for good.

By the time they made it out, they were both trembling. 

Jared curled up in a ball on the riverbank, folding his arms around his legs in an effort to warm himself up and wiggling his frozen toes in his sandals, and he bit his lip when he saw Jensen rubbing his shaking hands today. It would've been so easy to wrap Jensen in a hug to make them both feel better but with the touch restrictions still in place Jared couldn't do anything except watch him shiver. 

Not for the first time that day, Jared wished an unpleasant fate on Hades. Preferably something involving lava. Spiky lava.

  
**+++**  


After the river of ice came the river Lethe.

Looking down at the apparently ordinary water, Jared turned to Jensen. "What's a Lethe?"

Jensen's pursed lips were still tinged with blue as he stared at the wooden sign. "I don't remember," he admitted. "You probably distracted me during that lesson."

"My dashing good looks are both a blessing and a curse," Jared said sadly. He was pleased to hear Jensen laugh and he looked at the river again in contemplation. "Maybe this is the happy river? Maybe we'll get in and it'll just make us really psyched about life."

"I know I'm kind of hazy on the specifics," Jensen said, "but I'm pretty certain that there's no 'river of being really psyched' in the Underworld."

"Well, there should be," Jared said firmly. "If we make it out alive, I'll write Hades a strongly worded scroll."

Jensen scowled and muttered, "Not as strongly worded as mine's going to be."

"Good point well made," he conceded. "Not that I'm enjoying any part of him kidnapping you, but you are definitely going to have to let me read that before you send it. I want to see which creature you threaten to feed his dick to." 

"You have really great priorities."

"Thank you." He looked down and was disappointed to see the river hadn't magically disappeared in the last few seconds. "So you have no idea what this one is?"

"Nope." Taking a deep breath, Jensen sat down on the riverbank and dangled his feet in the water. "Guess there's only one way to find out."

He was in the water before Jared could stop him. The river was about as deep as the other three, splashing up against Jensen's shoulders, but the force of the flow was weaker as Jensen waded across and called back, "It's okay! It just makes your body feel kind of tired -- maybe it's the river of sleepiness?"

"Seriously?" After fire, ice and sorrow, a sleepy river was kind of a letdown. "That seems anticlimactic."

Jensen was almost at the opposite bank when he glanced back over his shoulder. "Hey, I'll take an anticlimactic river over a painful one any day. Quit complaining."

"I'm not complaining," Jared said, sliding into the river. "Just making an observation."

The stream was pleasantly warm against his chilled skin and although he understood what Jensen meant about the water inducing tiredness, it was actually kind of soothing as he started to walk forward. "This is kind of nice," he said, surprised. "It's like sitting in a hot spring."

Jensen smiled at him from where he was now sitting on the bank and Jared wasn't sure what happened after that.

One second he was smiling back as he took another step forward, and the next he was raising his head from the water to find he was in the middle of a strange river in a strange cave with a very attractive stranger staring at him from the riverside.

"Jared?" the stranger asked. He sounded worried. "Jared, are you okay?"

The name that was directed at him was familiar so it seemed safe to assume that he was Jared. He didn't know what else was happening but it was nice that he had a name.

"Hi," he said amicably. "Who are you?" He looked around. "Why am I in a river?"

The stranger's eyes widened. He had very pretty eyes. "Oh, fuck." He dropped to his knees beside the river and beckoned Jared forward. "Jared, you need to get out of there now. C'mon, man."

Jared frowned. "Why?"

"Because Lethe is the river of forgetfulness," the stranger said urgently, as though that was supposed to mean something to him. "Your body isn't just tired, Jared, it's forgetting how to function. You need to get the fuck out of there right now."

Jared eyed him skeptically. He didn't appreciate being given orders by strangers who were evidently full of crazy talk.

The stranger sighed and took another approach, "Okay, fine, you don't need to believe me but you're standing in a shady river in the middle of a shady cave. You should probably just get out."

He gave him an encouraging smile. 

Jared remained unconvinced and edged back towards the opposite bank.

"No, no, this way!" the stranger pleaded. "Jared, it's me, Jensen. I'm your best friend. You came down here to rescue me."

"We're friends?" His gaze lingered on the way Jensen's soaked tunic clung to his body. "I don't remember you."

"I know," Jensen said. "You don't remember anything because you fell in the river and it made you forget. Just walk to me and climb out and you'll remember. Please, Jared."

Jared hesitated as he looked between the two sides of the river. One had a river of fire, which looked both ridiculous and painful, and one had Jensen, who could be wanting to kill Jared or to sleep with him. It was a dilemma.

A relieved smile split Jensen's face when Jared started to head in his direction. "Good choice, man," he said encouragingly. "Excellent choice. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other until you get to the edge."

Jared obeyed, taking steady, careful steps across the river to where Jensen was waiting for him. He wasn't sure why Jensen was talking to him like he was a child or how a river could cause amnesia but Jensen looked more and more attractive the closer he got, and Jared pictured kissing him the second he made it across.

"So I rescued you?" he asked, wading through the water. "What did I rescue you from?" He perked up. "Did I fight someone? Was I very heroic?"

"Sorry, dude, no fights," Jensen said. "You did come all the way down to the Underworld to save me from having to marry Hades though. That's pretty heroic as far as I'm concerned."

Jared beamed. Sure, he'd forgotten his own name but he totally knew he was awesome.

"I'm awesome," he said out loud. Modesty was overrated. "Does this mean you get to marry me now?"

"I'm actually trying to avoid marrying anyone," Jensen said, "since I'm not into being used as a prize." Jared's face fell and he added quickly, "But I would definitely pick you over Hades every time. Unless the contest was about who I most want to die a horrible death. Then it would be Hades all the way."

Jared nodded. "I can live with that."

Rationally he knew Jensen was getting closer but the other side of the river seemed so far away as he struggled to keep walking. His legs felt heavier and heavier, and he had trouble keeping his eyes open as he murmured, "Maybe I'll just stop for a break."

"No!"

"Just a short one," Jared said drowsily. The water lapped at his chest and he let himself sink lower into its embrace. "Just a tiny little nap…"

"No!" Jensen shouted again and Jared blinked his eyes open to see the angry look on Jensen's face. "No stopping!"

"Just for a minut-"

"No," Jensen snapped. "So help me, Jared, if you even think about dying in that river, I will come down to the Underworld and punch your ghost in the face. Move!"

Jared wasn't sure how one could punch a ghost in the face but he didn't want to Jensen to experiment on him. Forcing his eyes open, he trudged forward and stretched his arms out to let his fingertips touch the edge.

"Pull me out?" he asked sleepily as his legs started to give way. He hooked his elbows over the bank and held his hands out to Jensen with a dopey smile. "M'tired."

Jensen bit his lip. "I can't," he said. "I can't touch you. You're almost there, Jared, just pull yourself out and then you can sleep."

Jared sulked. "You're mean."

"I know." Jensen nodded. "I'm a terrible person and you should really get out of that river and yell at me for being so heartless."

"Yes." Jared couldn't really remember what Jensen had just said but it seemed like a good plan. "I'm gonna do that."

His arms ached as he hauled his upper body out of the water and he kicked out with weak legs until he managed to roll himself back onto solid ground. The cave floor was surprisingly comfortable beneath his back and he blinked up at the face that loomed into view.

"Hi."

Jensen still looked anxious. "Jared? Do you remember me?"

Bits and pieces of memories began to coalesce into a whole and he licked his lips before trying to speak.

Jensen's eyes went wide. "No, Jared, don't lick-"

Jared passed out before he finished speaking.

  
**+++**  


When he came to, Jared found himself staring up at one rock formation which strongly resembled a ferret.

"Huh."

"Oh, god."

It took Jared a moment to realize why his contemplation of a ferret rock merited such a strong (and loud) reaction, but the memories came flooding back when he looked over to see Jensen kneeling beside him, hands clasped together to stop himself touching him.

"You're alive." The relief in Jensen's voice was overwhelming and Jared propped himself up on his elbows to get a better look at him. "Fuck, Jared, I thought you were dead." Relief gave way to half-hearted anger. "Don't you ever do that to me again!"

"You thought I was dead?"

"You tasted some water from one of the Underworld rivers and then stopped moving! What was I supposed to think?" Jensen asked. "I couldn't touch you to check your pulse and there aren't exactly many sticks around here to poke you with."

"Hey," Jared said, sitting up on his knees opposite Jensen, "it's okay. I'm here."

"I know you're here," Jensen retorted. He sounded like Jared did when Harley mistook important mystical creatures for snackfood: worried but covering up his fear with rebukes. Jared was half-expecting to be refused treats as punishment. "Stop nearly dying. I don't like it." 

"I'm sorry," Jared said honestly. He wanted to reach out and squeeze Jensen's hand but had to settled for verbal reassurance, "I'll try not to nearly die anymore."

Jensen gave an grumpy nod. "Good." He looked Jared up and down. "You're you again now, right? You remember me?"

"I remember everything." He paused. "Well, the lessons about Underworld rivers are still a lost cause but I remember everything that I remembered before I fell in the amnesia water." He gave Jensen a sheepish smile. "Thank you for not letting me accidentally drown myself."

Jensen relaxed a little as he replied, "My pleasure." 

They both got to their feet and Jared pushed his wet hair out of his face as he followed Jensen over to the final river. He was close enough to see past the sunlight at the mouth of the cave and his heart skipped a beat when he recognized the familiar coastline of the bay just outside Nichoria. They were so close. All they had to do was not die in one more river.

"What's this one?"

Jensen didn't sound thrilled when he said, "Styx."

That rang bells for Jared and he searched his newly reacquired memories to work out where he'd heard the name. "Oh," he said cheerfully, "is this going to make us immortal? That would be _awesome_."

Despite his apparent concerns, Jensen couldn't keep from smiling. "Sorry, man, looks like Hades changed the formula. No immortality for us."

He gestured to the wooden sign bearing the name of the river, underneath which someone had added a second sign reading, _No Immortality. Please Refrain from Dipping Babies._

"Well, that blows." Having exhausted his knowledge of the river Styx, he looked to Jensen for answers. "What does it do now instead of granting immortality?"

"It's the river of hate," Jensen said flatly.

Jared raised his eyebrows. "Hate? Man, they should not let Hades be in charge of naming things." He looked down at the river, whose dark waters seemed to be flowing faster than the others. "Well, this looks promising."

"We should split up," Jensen said. "If we get any in our mouths, it could make us turn on each other. We can't let it make us touch."

"So, what, I go first and you follow?"

Jensen shook his head. "We need to go at the same time. If you go first and slip under, I might not make it across without you grabbing me."

"Right." There was a reason Jensen was the one who made the plans. "We should start further apart, I guess?" he said, moving to the right and away from Jensen. "Reduce the chance of one of us reaching the other one."

Nodding, Jensen moved to the left and crouched down on the bank. "It could be all right," he said hopefully. "As long as we keep our heads above water, we should be okay."

Given his track record with keeping his head above water, Jared wasn't all that confident that he'd manage it this time but he hummed in agreement anyway. He sat on the riverbank, feet poised to enter the water, and looked over at Jensen as he began the countdown, "Three… Two…"

Jensen joined in at, "One!" and Jared closed his eyes as he plunged down into the river. 

His sandaled feet hit the bottom when the water was at shoulder height and Jared opened his eyes. The current was warm and strong around him, making him fight to stay upright, and he held his arms above the water to stop his hands curling into fists as he looked around for Jensen.

He turned his head just in time to see a soaked Jensen push his way to the surface.

"Shit-"

It was like facing a stranger when Jensen's eyes fixed on him, bright and furious, and Jared held his hands up in what he hoped was a pacifying gesture. "Take it easy, man. Just calm down and-"

He shut up when Jensen let out a roar of anger and charged. 

The current was in Jensen's favor as he headed down the river towards him, and Jared took off across the stream as fast as he could. The water rushed passed him, gurgling gleefully, but Jared fought to keep his head above water as he ran for the other side.

"I'll kill you," Jensen called, closing the distance between them. "I'll rip out your fucking throat."

Glancing over, Jared saw the bloodthirsty grin on his lips but he picked up his pace when Jensen took a breath and dived beneath the surface. "Fuck!"

Every rush of water felt like a hand grabbing at his leg as he pressed on, desperate to get to the other bank before Jensen could swim the distance between them. His tunic was soaked and heavy, clinging to his legs as he tried to run through the chest-deep water, and he cursed under his breath as he went, "Fuck, Jensen, why couldn't you have been taller?"

There was a splash to his left and he looked up to see Jensen surface with a murderous gleam in his eyes. He was still too far away to touch him and Jared waded forward as Jensen dived under again, almost within touching distance of the final riverbank as he chanted under his breath, "Don't let Jensen kill me, don't let Jensen kill me, don't let Jensen kill me."

His hand finally touched the bank when water sprayed against his already-wet face.

Jensen burst to the surface inches away, shaking the water off and baring his teeth in a manic grin. "Heel, Jared."

He attacked as soon as Jared tried to scramble out of the water.

Terrified of being touched before they'd made it to safety, Jared danced back away from Jensen's fingertips as he planted his hands on the ground and swung his legs up out of the water. Jensen missed him by a hair's breadth when he lunged forward, landing in the water with a splash, but his hand darted out of the river to make a grab for Jared's wrist. 

Jared jerked away a split-second before he would've made contact and he stumbled to his feet in confusion when Jensen hauled himself up out of the river and ran at him with a frenzied shout. 

"No, no, Jensen-"

He was cut off with a cry as Jensen tackled him hard, bearing him down to the ground and pinning him there with the weight of his body. Jared's relief that Jensen hadn't vanished the second they touched was outweighed by the need for air as Jensen locked his hands around his throat and squeezed tight, his vicious smile still fixed in place even now that he was out of the river.

"Jensen…" Jared's plea was mouthed rather than spoken, unable to get words out past Jensen's grip on his throat and unable to prise his hands away from his neck, but he kept trying. They'd made it out of the Underworld together; he didn't want to die at Jensen's hands after clearing the final hurdle. "Jensen, stop!"

Droplets trickled down from Jensen's face onto Jared's chest and Jensen blinked to clear the water out of his eyes as he looked down at him. 

Jared didn't know whether the loosening of the grip on his throat was a conscious thought or not but the second he could suck in a breath, he grabbed Jensen's wrists to pull his hands away from his neck. Jensen fought on instinct, trying to tug his hands from Jared's grip, but Jared rolled them over to pin Jensen to the ground, trapping his wrists above his head as he said urgently, "Jensen? Jensen, you with me?"

He was beyond relieved to see the crazed glint fade from Jensen's eyes as his brow creased in a frown. "Jared?" He looked up at his pinned wrists. "What-" 

From the way his body went limp, Jared could pinpoint the instant realization hit and when Jensen looked back at him it was with a shocked look on his face. "Oh, god. Jared, I'm so sorry. I didn't- I couldn't touch the bottom and I went under and…" He swallowed. "I can't believe I did that."

Jared released his wrists and rolled off him to brush the water off his hands. Jensen wiped his own mouth with the back of his hand as Jared reassured him, "It's okay. It's not your fault -- it was the water."

Jensen still looked stunned as he sat up. He'd managed to keep his head above water for the first four rivers so Jared wasn't surprised that a face full of hate had shaken him. 

"It's okay," he said again, patting him on the shoulder. "I'm okay, you're okay, neither of us are stuck in Hades' palace or getting their throat ripped out in a hate river. I'd call that a win."

Jensen looked at his shoulder. "Wait, you can touch me?" Belated delight spread across his face as his grin broke through. "We made it?!"

Jared grinned back, barely able to believe it himself. "We made it."

The air was promptly knocked out of his lungs when Jensen tackled him again, this time in a very enthusiastic hug. 

Jared returned it gladly, more than pleased to have Jensen back with him again for good. Jensen's body was warm and damp against his own and Jared struggled to get over how good it was just to be able to touch him again, even if that touch was just the feel of Jensen's sodden tunic against his hand.

"Thank you," Jensen said, finally pulling back. "I would've hugged you earlier if Hades hadn't been such a fucking dickbag but thank you for coming to find me."

Jared wanted to point out that there was no way he could've left Jensen down there and that he definitely wouldn't have made it across at least two of the rivers without Jensen's help, but he figured that quibbling about the specifics could wait until they were in the tavern with a long line of drinks waiting for them.

Ruffling Jensen's wet hair, he settled for a simple, "You're welcome, princess."

Jensen hit him in the side. "Jackass."

"I don't know why you put up with me," Jared agreed but frowned when he caught the change in expression that crossed Jensen's face. "What's up?"

Jensen met his eyes. "You're in love with me."

Jared's eyes widened and he cringed as he felt his face heating in embarrassment. In the excitement (and terror) of the river crossings, he'd almost forgotten about his rash declaration of love, and he ran a hand through his wet hair as he said intelligently, "Uh."

Jensen kept looking at him, obviously expecting an answer, and Jared gave a helpless shrug. "Yeah." He barreled on before Jensen could speak, "I didn't mean to just throw it out there like that -- I was kinda convinced we were both going to die horribly so I figured I'd say it and get it off my chest so you didn't die not knowing." He dropped his gaze to his hands. "I really did not expect to be having this conversation."

"So you meant it?"

It was hard to read Jensen's tone but he was Jared's best friend. Jared wasn't about to lie to him now.

"Yeah, I meant it," he said. He knew his cheeks were flaming redder with every word he said and he tried to soften the blow as much as possible. "I'm not expecting anything from you though. I don't want you to pressure you or anything, and if you don't feel the same way, that's fine, I swear, we can just hang out like always and-"

Jared forgot the rest of his sentence as soon as Jensen's lips touched his. 

He blinked, momentarily baffled as to why Jensen's face was suddenly so close, but Jensen tilted his head to fit their lips together and Jared's eyes fell shut as Jensen kissed him. 

It was tense and tentative, pretty much as Jared would've expected from a kiss initiated mid-conversation, but the twist in Jared's belly started to uncoil when Jensen parted his lips and relaxed into it with a soft breath out. His lips were full and warm as Jared kissed the swell of them, and he tried to hold back his smile when Jensen's tongue slipped out to tease against his mouth.

A quick squeeze to Jensen's hip was all it took to give the kiss more confidence and Jared yielded happily to the reflexive pull on his wet tunic to hold him close and the needy push of Jensen's tongue against his own. Jensen kissed deep but gentle, like he was trying not to rush things even as he curled up against Jared's body while his tongue curled against his lips, and Jared let himself be carried along for the ride. 

Still busy with processing the fact that no, he wasn't hallucinating and yes, Jensen was actually kissing him, he was taken by surprise when Jensen shifted forward further until he was straddling his thighs. Worried they were moving too fast, Jared pulled away from the kiss with difficulty and steeled himself against Jensen's hurt expression when he asked, "Jensen, man, are you sure about this? You don't need to-"

"Do you want this?" Jensen asked, quiet and close and so damn tempting. 

Jared tried to ignore the way that went straight to his dick. "Yeah," he said honestly, "yeah, I do, but if you don't-"

Jensen put a finger on his lips and fixed him with a mock-serious stare. Jared tried very hard to listen to the words that were coming out of his mouth instead of just fixating on the visual of Jensen's general mouth area. 

Jensen's lips curved in a timid but happy smile and he leaned in close with the murmur, "I'm good with it. Now kiss me already, asshole."

Jared was mid-chuckle when Jensen lifted his finger away to give him another quick kiss. "You're so romantic," he teased, and Jensen rolled his eyes.

"Shut up," he said, not unkindly, and since obeying meant more kisses, Jared complied.

Kneeling over Jared's lap, Jensen cupped his cheek and pulled him in for another kiss, lighter and more playful than the first. Evidently calling him an asshole had got him past some of the earlier nerves and Jared found himself groaning in surprised enjoyment as Jensen sucked gently on his tongue before letting his teeth scrape over the jut of his lower lip. 

He held Jensen closer, smoothing a hand down his back and wrapping his fingers around his hip as he focused on the teasing brush of their tongues and lips rather than the growing interest that his dick was showing in proceedings. However, it was difficult to ignore with Jensen all but sitting in his lap as he rocked his hips forward and let out perfect little noises against Jared's mouth.

Jared kissed back harder, biting and licking at Jensen's lips in return, before pulling back enough to whisper between kisses, "God, you have no idea how much I wanted this."

Jensen smiled into the kiss. "I think I'm getting the idea."

"I love you," Jared said, still not over the thrill of getting to say that out loud. He ran his hand along Jensen's cheek, tracing the line of his jawbone and wiping away the water before kissing his way down the underside of his jaw. Jensen groaned and shivered happily against him and, after feeling no sudden bursts of rage from the hate-water upon kissing him, Jared licked over the sensitive skin with playful flicks of his tongue then nipped at it with his teeth.

Above him, Jensen let out a contented sigh and pressed a kiss to the top of his head as Jared licked and kissed his way down the column of his throat. 

He tipped his head to the side to suck a hickey into his skin when he felt Jensen freeze up and then pull away sharply, looking at Jared in confusion. "What are you doing?!"

Jared stared at him dumbly. "Huh?" 

Replaying the last few moments, he deflated at the memory of Jensen kissing the top of his head. Normally he was fully in favor of head-kissing but belatedly he realized it wasn't such a smart plan when his hair was still soaked with water from the river Lethe. 

Remembering what happened after he'd inadvertently licked amnesia-water from his own lips, Jared held his arms out quickly as Jensen blinked, dazed and disoriented. 

"Who are you?" Jensen mumbled. He looked down at their bodies. "Why am I sitting on you?"

He dropped into unconsciousness a second later. 

Jared managed to catch him before his head hit the ground. Jensen slumped into his waiting arms in a large, sleepy bundle of person, and Jared tucked him up against his chest with a sigh. Clearly their two-minute relationship had been going far too well and so had to be stopped.

Jensen's face was slack and peaceful, and Jared smoothed down his wet hair while studiously ignoring the second thoughts which took the opportunity to creep into his mind. 

Jensen had wanted to kiss him. He definitely hadn't felt pressured into it by the circumstances or guilted into it by Jared saving his life, and Jared definitely hadn't just fucked up their friendship in a major, irreparable way.

Jared repeated those facts to himself over and over as he carried Jensen's unconscious body out of the cave and to the big, comfortable bed in Jensen's nearby house. 

By the time he'd made it back to his own home, he was doubting all of them.

****

+++

"Your boy's awake."

Jared jumped at Artemis' announcement, sending an arrow veering wildly into an unsuspecting tree, and he spun around to find her sitting on a fallen log. "Really? Is he okay? Does he remember what happened?"

Artemis raised her eyebrows. "Sorry, I missed the part where I was supposed to interrogate him about his mental state. You asked me to tell you when he woke up, so I'm telling you he woke up." She grabbed her bow and slid off the log to her feet. "Job done. Feel free to give me a sacrifice whenever you're ready. I'm in the mood for baked goods today."

"Can't you just-"

"No."

"I only need-"

"No," Artemis interrupted again. "I'm the goddess of hunting, Jared. Not the goddess of loitering by your boyfriend's bedside because you pulled him out of the Underworld then decided to hide from him."

"I'm not hiding. I'm just…" He searched for a suitable defense. "Giving him some space. The guy got kidnapped by the king of the Underworld; I don't think he wants me lurking in his bedroom right now."

Artemis tied her hair back out of her face and asked, "What happened?"

"I told you. There were these rivers-"

"I'm not talking about the rivers, Jared." She folded her arms across her chest and fixed him with a stare. "If Jensen had just tasted Lethe's waters, you'd be practically sitting on top of him to make sure he was okay. What else happened down there? Did he choose someone else over you?"

She actually looked sympathetic. Jared found it unsettling.

"No," he said hurriedly. "No, he didn't choose anyone else over me. He chose me, I think -- I mean, we kissed and everything -- but I don't know if he _chose_ me or if he felt like he had to, y'know? I don't want to be the guy who people feel like they have to kiss. That's not a good place to be."

"Wow, I'm so glad I got involved in the problems of mortals," Artemis said sarcastically. "You people make so much sense." Sadie ambled over from the trees with a woof of agreement and received pats from Artemis as a reward. "Why didn't you just stay and talk to Jensen about this?"

"Because there's no good way to ask your best friend if they kissed you because you guilted them into it by rescuing them from a skeevy Underworld god," Jared said bluntly. "Seriously, it makes me sound like an asshole no matter how I phrase it."

Artemis sighed. "Then I'm out of advice."

Jared frowned.

"Hey, my expertise are limited to the hunt," she reminded him. "You need ways to skin a chimera, then I'm your deity, but my romantic advice is limited to 'talk to your boyfriend'. Now," she said, brushing her hands off as Sadie went bounding away to chase a hapless woodland creature, "are you going to go talk to Jensen about how much you suck at finding appropriate times to kiss him or are you going to stay here and hunt and try not to obsess over this?"

Neither choice sounded particularly appealing -- why was there not an option to reverse time in order to avoid screwing up his friendship with opportunistic kissing, dammit -- but skulking in the woods with a goddess, dogs and pointy bits of metal currently seemed less terrifying than confronting Jensen.

He twanged his bow-string and sighed. "I pick hunting."

Given her area of interest, Artemis looked surprisingly unimpressed with his choice.

 

****

+++

Despite his best efforts, Jared's body had refused to listen to his decision to spend the day hunting, and as he trekked back towards Nichoria at sunset with his dogs trotting beside him, it was with the knowledge that he'd made zero successful shots that day.

(Technically he'd made negative-two successful shots, since he'd twice managed to help the prey get away instead of catching it, but he decided to round up to zero.)

At his feet, Sadie and Harley seemed equally discontent with the day's efforts, and Jared bent over to pat their backs as he walked. "I know, guys. I suck, I'm sorry."

Harley licked his hand. Since Harley had spent half the day jumping into streams in pursuit of stationary rocks, Jared didn't find his vote of doggy confidence that reassuring.

"It'll be better tomorrow," he promised, striding out of the field and turning down the lane towards his house. "I'll talk to Jensen and tell him I'm not the kind of creep who guilts people into kissing them, then everything will go back to how it was. Which might include me pining over him a tiny bit but that's okay."

Harley and Sadie promptly took off as soon as he finished speaking.

"Oh, great," Jared called after them. "Thanks, guys! I really appreciate being abandoned by my own dogs when I'm having a life-altering crisis. I mean, I feed you and I pet you and I let you spend all day running through the fields hunting inanimate objects but it's cool, I'm sure whatever tree you're attacking now is just as awesome as I…"

He trailed off when he rounded the corner to find Harley and Sadie sacked out on the ground outside his house with their heads resting happily in Jensen's lap.

Jared blinked and quickly conceded that his dogs may have made a good choice there.

Nudging Harley and Sadie off him, Jensen stood up with a nervous smile. He was dripping wet and had a angry red cut on his cheek but those issues seemed secondary to the fact that he wasn't brandishing any kind of weapon or looking like he now hated Jared forever. 

"Hi."

"Hi yourself," Jared replied. He wasn't sure where to start on the whole 'I may have inadvertently taken advantage of you between rescuing you from the Underworld and letting my hair knock you unconscious' issue and so went with what he could see. "Are you okay? You're-"

Jensen grimaced. "Wet."

"I was going with hurt," Jared said, "but wet works too." He wanted to reach out to pat Jensen on the arm but forced himself to keep his hands to himself as he moved past him and gestured to the house. "You wanna come inside?"

Jensen nodded gratefully and Jared led him through to sit on a couch. He retrieved a blanket to wrap around his shoulders and then took a seat on the opposite couch while Harley and Sadie cuddled up to Jensen to help him get warm. "What happened?"

"Poseidon," Jensen said, squeezing his soaked tunic to leave a little puddle of water on the floor. Harley licked at it happily. "I think this was the sea-god equivalent of trying to grab my ass."

Jared recoiled as a thought occurred to him. "If he's the sea-god and you're covered in water, does that mean-"

"No," Jensen said firmly. "I have been working really hard at not contemplating being covered in watery come. You are not allowed to make me think about it."

Despite himself, Jared smiled. "My lips are sealed," he promised. "No more thinking about come whirlpools. My thoughts are on really important things, not whether Poseidon can cause tidal waves whenever he ejaculates."

He was relieved to see Jensen smiling back at him even as he wrinkled his nose in disgust and said, "You're a terrible person."

"Old news." He shuffled forward on the couch until their knees were almost touching, and he reached out to touch Jensen's cheek. "What happened to your face? Did Poseidon do that too?"

"Try his sister." Jensen frowned in a mixture of confusion and disgust. "And his sister-in-law, I guess. The gods are fucked-up, man." At Jared's bemused expression, he clarified, "It was Hera. She was mad that Zeus tried to golden-shower his way under my tunic and decided to take it out on me. Because obviously I wanted her husband to show up and be creepy at me."

"That sucks," Jared said sympathetically. He peered at the cut on Jensen's cheek but felt fresh bemusement rise up at the fact that Jensen had got away from a jealous, vindictive goddess with just a scratch. "Wait, how did you stop her from killing you or turning you into a cow or something?" He perked up. "Are you immortal? Did the Styx work after all?"

Jensen shook his head. "I'm not immortal. Since Zeus didn't actually get anywhere with me, I managed to talk Hera out of the smiting."

"But the cut…"

"I got divebombed by one of her peacocks," Jensen said unhappily. "They have sharp feet."

"Man, I'm sorry."

Jensen scrubbed a hand over his face. "It's been a crappy day, y'know? I nearly got swept out to sea and I had a bird thrown at my head, and that's after I woke up this morning to find out that my best friend, who saved my life yesterday, was avoiding me."

Jared cringed. "Jensen…"

"What?" Jensen asked, sounding more hurt than angry. "What happened to you? The last thing I remember was being in the cave with you then I woke up by myself in my own bed, and when I came to find you, you were hiding up in the woods the whole day."

"I wasn't hiding," he said weakly. Sadie gave a low bark which sounded far too amused for Jared's liking. "I just wasn't easy to find." 

Jensen raised his eyebrows and Jared's shoulders sagged. "Okay, I was hiding."

"Why?"

Huddled in the blanket, Jensen looked confused and upset. If it had been anyone else causing it, Jared probably would've punched them, or at least would've been large and menacing until they apologized, but he didn't think being large and menacing at himself was a great tactic.

"I'm sorry," he said honestly. "I just- I panicked."

"Did I do something?" Jensen asked. "I know you went the whole way down to the Underworld to rescue me but I'm really, really grateful for that, Jared. I never wanted to get abducted by a weirdly possessive god, I swear."

"I know," Jared said quickly. "God, I know. I'm not blaming you for any of it." The taking-advantage issue was looming and Jared took a deep breath before he explained, "I felt bad for what I did to you. I shouldn't have picked a cave full of death-rivers as the place to tell you I love you and I shouldn't have let my hair knock you unconscious and I really, really shouldn't have pressured you into kissing me."

Jensen raised his hand. "Hold up. That's why you were avoiding me? Because you think you pressured me into kissing you?"

Jared's cheeks heated in shame. "Well, yeah."

"Jared, I kissed you. I thought I made it pretty clear was no pressuring involved."

Jared blinked. He'd been over the non-kissing parts of that conversation again and again in his head all day and had successfully convinced himself that he was a horrible person who pressured his best friend into kissing him. This new information was very confusing.

"But- But you asked me if I wanted it and I said yes," he said, hoping it would make more sense out loud, "and then I asked you if you wanted it and you didn't say yes. You only said you were good with it."

It really didn't make more sense out loud.

"And I thought that meant you didn't really want it," Jared continued, losing his conviction. "I thought you were just putting up with it because you thought it was what I wanted."

Jensen stared at him.

Jared gulped. "Is that a 'Jared, you just worked out my innermost thoughts' stare or a 'Jared, you're an idiot' stare?"

He got his answer when Jensen moved swiftly from his seat on the couch to a much more fun position astride Jared's lap then whispered against his lips. "You're an idiot."

Jared failed to produce a comeback in the split-second before Jensen pulled him into a kiss.

The kiss was deeper than their first ones in the cave, wet and eager and smooth as Jensen pulled him in close to let his tongue slip past Jared's lips. Having learned from the earlier surprise kisses, Jared returned it quickly and held Jensen tight against him to let him dictate the pace.

His worries melted away one by one as Jensen's lips, teeth, and tongue did an excellent job of convincing him that Jared wasn't taking advantage of anything. Far from being on board with proceedings, Jensen was captaining proceedings with enthusiasm, except this time without the oversized hat. 

His dick showed considerable interest at the idea of Jensen writhing prettily on his lap dressed only in a sailor's hat and when Jensen pulled back for air, Jared made no attempt at hiding the smile which spread across his face. 

All the dogs were dogs and not statues; there were no death-rivers in sight; Jensen was making out with him instead of yelling at him; and no-one was accidentally pressuring anyone else into kisses. Basically it was an all-around success.

He smiled up at Jensen. "So I get rewards for being an idiot? I can get behind this incentive program." He replayed his last words. "Uh, not get behind in the, y'know," --he made a vague thrusting motion with his hips-- "sex sense, just in the general supportive sense."

" _Not_ the sex sense?" Jensen's sulky expression only seemed half-fake. "Way to get a guy's hopes up."

Jared tried not to choke on his tongue. "I- You think we should have sex? Now?"

"Well, some more foreplay would be ideal," Jensen teased, "but yeah, dude. Sex is the logical conclusion."

"But you're a virgin."

"Virgins do have sex, Jared," he said patiently. "That's how non-virgins are made. And babies too, I guess."

Jared grinned as he slid his hand down to squeeze Jensen's ass. "Hate to break it to you, man, but I don't think we're going to be making any babies together."

"Really?" Jensen's eyes grew wide and sad, and for a moment Jared almost believed him. 

Right up until he smiled and gave him another quick kiss, anyway. "I'm so glad you have such a high opinion of my intelligence."

"I'm in it for your looks," Jared teased but yielded when Jensen glared at him. "Kidding, kidding." He kissed him on the cheek and rested his hands at his waist. "You don't need to do this right away, you know. I'm fine with holding off if you want -- I know you keep getting harassed all the time."

"That doesn't mean I don't want to have sex," Jensen said, scrunching his fingers in Jared's hair. It felt pretty awesome. "Or make out or date or anything else like that. I just don't want it to be with some jerkoff god or a dickwad offspring of a god." He looked bashful when he admitted, "I figured I'd wait for the right person."

Jared's heart did a happy little skip. "And I'm the right person?"

"No, I'm going to go out now and have sex with whichever drunk guy in the tavern has the best beard. It's a surefire way to find true love." Jensen rolled his eyes and kissed him again. "Of course you're the right person, dumbass. It just took me a while to work it out."

Jared nodded sagely. "I do love you for your observational skills."

Jensen gave his hair a playful tug. "Asshole."

He used his grip on his hair to tilt his head back. Jared went willingly, resting back on his hands and baring his throat for Jensen to kiss his way up his neck. He shivered at the feel of Jensen's tongue sweeping over his skin and at the gentle scrape of his teeth on his jaw then his lips as Jensen brought his mouth up to meet Jared's.

It was too deep at first, with Jensen's tongue tickling the roof of his mouth, but Jensen quickly got the hint and took things slower, shifting in Jared's lap as their tongues rode pleasantly together. 

His clothes were still damp when Jared stroked down Jensen's back but he smiled inwardly at the way Jensen's muscles clenched under his palm when he moved his hands down to cup his ass. Jensen sighed into the kiss but when he wiggled his butt in Jared's hands, Jared broke away, smiling too broadly to continue.

Jensen laughed against his shoulder and kissed his collarbone. "Sorry."

"You should be," Jared said with mock severity. "I'm trying to kiss you here and you keep shaking your ass at me." 

His stern facade cracked as Jensen dissolved into laughter again but he aimed for a serious face when Jensen lifted his head. "I'm sorry," Jensen said with contrition. "I will keep my ass very still next time you kiss me."

He stayed true to his word when Jared gave him a peck on the lips, and Jared ran his thumb under the cut on his cheek. "Or we could take this to the bedroom where you can move your butt as much as you want?"

"You're so thoughtful," Jensen teased between kisses. "Bedroom sounds good."

"Awesome." Tapping into the reserve of the strength which suddenly became available at the prospect of having sex with Jensen, Jared pushed himself to his feet with Jensen gathered in his arms. 

Jensen yelped and flailed for a second before hooking his legs around Jared's waist and looping his arms around his neck to stay upright. Trying not to step on the dogs, who were watching with bewildered stares, Jared headed for the bedroom as Jensen said, "Y'know, if you break your back before we get to have sex, I'm gonna be really mad at you."

Jared shrugged. "Hey, one day we might even make it into bed without one of us carrying the other one."

"That's a good life goal," Jensen agreed.

Reaching the bed, Jared let him topple backwards onto the covers before climbing on top of him while Jensen made himself comfortable on the pillows. Their noses were almost touching and Jared pushed his hair out of his face before asking one more time, "You sure you want this?" It seemed more serious now that they were actually in bed and not just speculating from the couch and Jared said honestly, "You can change your mind if you want to -- we can wait or we could just be frien-"

"Jared," Jensen interrupted. He met his eyes. "I don't think I can overstate just how much I want you to fuck me right now."

The last knot of tension dissolved as Jared laughed and kissed him. "I guess I can do that," he said, running his hand up Jensen's thigh. "Since you asked so nicely and all."

The smile Jensen gave him in return was downright wicked and Jared lifted his arms obediently to let Jensen pull his tunic up over his head. Jared kicked his sandals off then moved to help Jensen with his shoes but Jensen had obviously had the same thought. Their heads bumped together and Jensen dropped back to the bed with a groan. "Ow."

Rubbing his forehead where he'd managed to headbutt Jensen, Jared leaned over to kiss him on the head in apology. "Sorry, dude."

"Your head is like a tree," Jensen complained good-naturedly. "An angry tree."

Jared chuckled as he sat back up and went to work on pulling Jensen's shoes off. "What can I say, I know how to show a guy a good time."

"At least one of us does." Jensen slapped a hand over his eyes. "Oh, shit."

"What? No, no 'oh, shit'. This is not 'oh, shit' sex."

"I forgot," Jensen said. Jared experienced a brief moment of panic that Jensen had forgotten some mysterious curse which meant he couldn't ever have sex ever and now had to go live alone on an island somewhere while Jared pined and cried into his pillow a lot, and so he was relieved when Jensen lowered his hand and said miserably, "You fucked Hercules."

"Well, yeah," Jared said, bemused. "You knew that. Do you have amnesia again?" He wiggled two fingers in front of Jensen's face then hid them. "How many fingers did I just hold up?"

"I don't have amnesia," Jensen said. "It's just… You fucked _Hercules_ , man. How am I supposed to compete with that? He probably has a magical demigod ass or something."

Jared tried not to laugh. He didn't want to give Jensen's ass an inferiority complex.

"Hey," he said, running his fingers through Jensen's wet hair, "I love you, genius. There's no comparison. Plus Hercules was a terrible lay. He has all the stamina of a lazy goat." 

Jensen's lips twitched in a smile and Jared couldn't resist kissing them. "You sure?" Jensen asked, sounding almost nervous.

"I'm sure," Jared promised. "You are way better than Hercules. Now," he murmured, inching his hand further up Jensen's thigh, "where were we?"

"You were taking your clothes off," Jensen said. "I was enjoying it."

"You're the one who's all wet," Jared pointed out, kissing along Jensen's jaw and pushing his soaked tunic up his legs. "I should get you out of those wet clothes."

He was met with no protest from Jensen and Jared whipped his tunic off in one swift tug and let it drop to a soggy pile on the floor. Jared got the cloth around his hips off first and he fumbled with the blankets to cover them both up as Jensen divested himself of his underwear. He didn't want them to get cold, after all.

Lying on his back, Jensen looked up at him with an content smile on his face. This boded well for his level of post-sex contentment and Jared settled himself between Jensen's spread thighs to continue the kissing.

Jensen's body was cool against his, presumably from the chill of the water, and Jared burrowed in closer to warm him up. He was an excellent snuggler. Jensen hummed into the kiss when Jared traced the soft pink of his lips with his tongue, and Jared let him take more of his weight as he pressed him back into the pillows. His dick was half-hard between his legs and getting harder with every little noise and wriggle from Jensen, and he ground lazily against him, enjoying the comfortable touch of skin on skin.

He was in the middle of getting Jensen to make gradually higher-pitched moans when trumpets sounded.

Jared pulled back. "What the-"

More trumpets.

"Is that an army?"

Jensen looked around in confusion. "It sounds like an army."

It had been going so well. 

"But I don't want there to be an army," Jared said petulantly, sitting up and looking for the source of the trumpets. "One angry guy with a sword was more than enough for me." He looked at Jensen. "Make there not be an army."

The blare of the trumpets got louder and Jared jumped at the flash of light that filled the room. He really didn't want to be killed by an invisible army while he was naked and on top of Jensen.

He opened his eyes as the light and the trumpets faded away but he immediately frowned at the sight of the man standing beside the bed in shiny armor. 

Very shiny armor. 

Shiny enough that Jared was kind of embarrassed by how messy his hair looked in his reflection.

"Um, hi?" Jared said, looking up at the guy's face for the first time. 

He was wearing a helmet, which seemed a little excessive seeing as how he was attacking two naked guys who were just trying to have sex, but he could see auburn hair peeking out from underneath it which matched the reddish tint to his beard. His face seemed familiar but Jared struggled to place it as he asked, "Can I help you?"

"You sure can," the guy said, pulling off his helmet and running a hand through his hair. Jared shoved his own disheveled hair out of his eyes and decided that he kind of hated the guy. "I'm Ares. Maybe you've heard of me." He winked at him. Jared wanted to punch him in his stupid, good-looking face. "I'm looking for Jensen."

Jared heard a despairing huff of breath from underneath him before Jensen pushed himself up on his elbows and waved awkwardly. "Right here."

Ares' eyebrows shot up as he looked between them. "Oh, man. Guess the two of you are busy, huh?"

"What gave it away?" Jared muttered. He knew he probably shouldn't antagonize the god of war but Jensen was naked and in bed with him and really enthusiastic about them having sex. Jared couldn't be blamed for making questionable life choices.

"We're busy," Jensen agreed. "Please go away?"

Ares nodded. "I will get right on that." 

He tilted his head to get a better look at them. 

Jared couldn't stop the growl that slipped out of his mouth and Ares held his hands up in apology, "Sorry, man, I didn't know you'd staked your claim already. I formally concede the battle for Jensen's affections." 

Jared didn't know he'd been in a battle but he was happy to have won. 

Ares flashed him a rakish smile. "Have fun, guys."

His disappearance was accompanied by a quick burst of trumpeting, which almost masked Jensen's stunned question, "Staked your claim?"

Suddenly it was like riding a displeased pony and Jared tried to stay upright as Jensen made an attempt at attacking the empty space where Ares had been. "Hey, hey-"

"People can't just claim me," Jensen said, offended. "I'm not a steak."

Jared frowned. "Why would someone claim a steak?"

Jensen stopped flailing. "Because they want to eat it," he said, looking at Jared like he was being particularly slow. It wasn't Jared's fault he had trouble thinking of food when he was in bed with Jensen. "You claim steaks all the time. I've seen you do it."

On second thoughts, he had a point. 

"You are very delicious," Jared said helpfully. "I can see how people would be confused."

That got a laugh out of Jensen even as he said, "I hate you." Calming down, he dropped back onto the pillows with an absent-minded scowl. "I still don't want people thinking I'm being claimed."

"No-one thinks that," Jared said, laying down on top of him and tweaking his nose. "Well, except the gods, I guess, but they're fickle, incestuous psychos. We can ignore them."

Jensen still looked pouty, which Jared couldn't help but find endearing. "Fine," he relented, snuggling in closer to Jared's body, "but I swear, if you say anything about claiming me…"

"You can kick my ass," Jared said, leaning down over him. "I am one hundred percent okay with that."

He kissed him before Jensen could fume any more and was relieved when he relaxed against him. He settled between Jensen's thighs again, grinding slowly and kissing deeply as he let himself sink back into the enjoyment of what they were doing instead of worrying about any more gods dropping in for surprise visits. 

Jensen spread his legs further as Jared leaned up to nip at his earlobe, and Jared slid his hands down until his fingers nudged up against the crease of Jensen's thighs. He curled his hands in, taking his own weight on his knees as he cupped Jensen's balls and traced his fingers up the underside of his dick in a slow tickle that made Jensen laugh and twitch. Jensen was hard in his hands but Jared had to rest his palms back on the bed to stop himself overbalancing when Jensen tugged him down into a kiss.

Their teeth clacked together but neither of them seemed to be able to stop smiling as Jensen cursed, "Shit, sorry."

"You know, it's not polite to teethbutt a guy when he's trying to get you off," Jared said, licking his palm then wrapping his hand around Jensen's dick with a grin. "Seriously, man, you should work on your dick etiquette."

"Uh-huh," Jensen said, biting his lip. "I'll make sure to write you a thank you note in the morning."

"Only if you write it with your dick," Jared said with mock-seriousness. 

Jensen barely got his hand over his face in time to muffle his undignified snort of laughter. "Fuck, I did not need that image."

"So," Jared said, fluttering his eyelashes in Jensen's direction, "is your first time as magical as you'd hoped so far?"

"It's amazing," Jensen deadpanned. "So romantic." He gave him a quick kiss on the jaw but then wriggled his hips, pushing up into the circle of Jared's hand. "Although I'm pretty certain you're meant to actually fuck me at some point for this to count."

Fucking sounded like a good plan. Jared tried to coax his brain past the euphoria of having Jensen in his bed and towards a more practical course of action, but Jensen was one step ahead of him as he reached over for the small pot of oil Jared kept on the floor by the corner of the bed.

"How did you…"

"I accidentally drank some when I stayed over a few months back."

"When did- Oh, man." It all came flooding back. "That time I thought a cat had gotten injured? That was you making that noise?"

Jensen looked sheepish. "Maybe."

"I spent two hours looking for an imaginary sick cat because of that," Jared muttered, snagging the oil from Jensen's hands. He felt warmer now, even though his hair was visibly wet, and Jared shucked the blankets off to give himself better access. "You're a bad friend."

He watched the oil pour down over his hand, making his skin shine in the dim light of the bedroom. Jensen slid down to give him better access and planted his feet wide apart on the bed as he said, distracted, "I guess we should have sex before my sick cat noises destroy our friendship forever."

Jared grinned. "I'm all over it."

He took hold of Jensen's dick in his left hand, covering it liberally with oil as he watched Jensen bite his lip and shiver. His body went loose as Jared kept up a slow pressure on his dick and Jared lowered his other hand to brush over the sensitive dip of Jensen's hole.

Jensen jumped, instantly tensing, but he relaxed again quickly under Jared's hands. 

"Take it easy," Jared soothed. He reached up to grab a pillow and slid it under Jensen's hips to allow easier entry. "If I'm going too fast, just tell me and I can stop or slow down or whatever you want." Unsure how much Jensen knew about sex itself, he checked the nail on his index finger and then pressed through the resistance offered by his hole as he explained awkwardly, "I, uh. I need to get you loosened up."

Jensen lifted his head and raised his eyebrows. "Please tell me you're not giving me a 'how sex works' lecture while you have your fingers inside me."

Jared's cheeks heated. "Technically it's just one finger so far."

He felt the vibrations all the way through Jensen's body as he laughed. "I know how sex works, Jared," he promised. "Okay, yeah, I haven't slept with a guy yet but that's because ninety-nine percent of the guys I've met are creeps, gods, or creepy gods. It doesn't mean I'm clueless about this." His breath hitched when Jared eased a second finger inside him. "I experimented sometimes."

Jared paused with two fingers halfway inside Jensen's ass. "What?"

"I experimented," Jensen repeated. His cheeks went pink and Jared was amused that he was more self-conscious about talking about experimentation than being spread out on the bed while Jared opened him up on his hand. "I'm good at carvings so I, uh-"

He made a vaguely obscene hand gesture. Jared tried not to whimper at the thought of Jensen carefully carving a fake dick out of wood, painting it with resin, and then fucking himself open with it. 

He barely realized he'd reacted until he looked down to see that he'd taken his left hand off Jensen's dick and moved it to his own.

Jensen smirked. "I guess you approve?" He shifted on the pillows, clenching around Jared's fingers. "Maybe I'll bring it with me next time…"

Jared gave up on working either of their dicks and leaned forward to seal Jensen's lips with eager kisses. "You have good ideas," he said happily. "So does this mean there's going to be a next time?"

Jensen's hands slid through his hair to pull him down for a kiss right after Jensen murmured against his lips, "Jared, stop talking."

It was an easy instruction to follow when Jensen's lips were on his. Jared licked inside his mouth, mindful of the movement of his fingers as he slowly fucked them in and out of Jensen's ass. Jensen whimpered against him, grinding his hips up to let their dicks rub together and trying to work Jared's fingers deeper inside him while Jared added a third to open him up wider. 

"God," Jensen moaned, lifting his hips in a smooth roll to meet Jared's fingers. "God, Jared, deeper."

Jared gave his own dick a quick stroke, slicking it up with oil, but forced himself to stop before he got too carried away with the pressure of his hand around his dick. Jensen's first time was not supposed to involve Jared jerking off just at the thought of sex and then falling asleep.

His hands were damp and smooth with oil when he pushed his fingers in to the knuckle and twisted and crooked them inside Jensen. He indulged in the pleasure of Jensen's reactions for a moment, getting harder and closer at every groan and shudder and wordless plea that escaped him, before pulling his hand out and fitting his hips between Jensen's legs. Jensen only seemed more enthusiastic when Jared let the thick head of his cock press against his tiny hole and clutched tighter at his hair as Jared braced himself against the bed.

"C'mon," Jensen begged. "C'mon, man."

He caught Jared's lip between his teeth and gave a gentle tug while he bore down as much as the position would allow. There wasn't enough force behind it to let Jared ease inside and he kept still for a second, enjoying the needy whimpers spilling from Jensen's lips and the warmth of Jensen's body underneath him. Maybe waiting wasn't so bad after all.

"God, fuck me already," Jensen whined. He met Jared's gaze when he opened his eyes and blinked up at him. "Please…"

Jared could never resist when Jensen looked at him like that. It also didn't help that his dick was likely to stage a rebellion if he didn't make a move soon.

He held his breath as he pushed in slowly, watching Jensen's face for any indication he should stop. Jensen's lips parted in a gasp and he screwed his eyes shut with a wince when the head of Jared's dick eased through the tight ring of muscle, stretching him wide.

"You okay?" Jared asked breathlessly, moving as little as he could. "Should I stop?"

Jensen shook his head. "Keep going."

He bit his lip when Jared moved deeper and Jared watched his lip turn white under the pressure of his teeth as he adjusted to the stretch. He filled him up, holding him open on his dick, but he was relieved to feel Jensen finally loosen around him, accommodating the length and width as he opened his eyes to meet Jared's.

"You good?"

Jensen nodded and leaned up to kiss him. "I'm good," he promised, sounding raw and overwhelmed. "You're big."

"Why thank you," Jared said, waggling his eyebrows, and Jensen flopped down on the pillows with a grin.

"I don't think it counts as innuendo when I'm actually talking about your dick," he pointed out. "Plus you're already fucking me. You don't need to hit on me right now."

"Gee," Jared said, pulling out a little, "way to spoil my fun."

Jensen's laugh was cut off by a low groan when Jared thrust in with one smooth stroke, deep enough that his balls rested up against Jensen's ass. Jensen couldn't do much but moan when Jared kept moving, setting a firm, steady pace as he fucked him, and Jared curled over to kiss him again. 

"I love you," he said, scattering kisses along Jensen's jaw before catching him full on the lips. "God, I love you."

Jensen smiled, breathless and pink-cheeked. "Okay, you need to pick better times for saying that. It's not fair."

Biting back his own smile, Jared locked their lips together as he started to move faster. Jensen was tight around his dick (but thankfully not tight enough to cause trauma and mayhem and Jensen swearing off cock for the rest of his life) and Jared rested both hands on the bed as he picked up his pace. Jensen arched under him, hole clenching around Jared's length, and groaned happily. "Shit, Jared…"

That seemed to be a definite sign of approval so Jared tried to repeat his movements, pushing in deep on every thrust as Jensen rocked his hips up to meet him. It took a few tries to get it right, either because of him going too fast or Jensen rocking up too late, but Jared couldn't hold in a pleased noise of his own when they finally settled into the right rhythm together.

"Fuck," Jensen murmured, screwing down on Jared's dick. "That feels amazing."

Belatedly remembering that he should be focused on more than just the pressure of Jensen's ass around his dick, Jared reached down between their bodies to tug on Jensen's cock. 

He was hard and slick with a combination of oil and the precome that was smearing out over the head of his dick. Jared felt his movements jitter when his hand closed aroud his cock, like Jensen wasn't sure whether he wanted to push up into Jared's hand or fuck himself down onto his dick, but he nudged him back into motion with another deep thrust inside and a firm jack of his dick.

Jensen cried out, biting his lip and grabbing at Jared's arms, and Jared grinned at the glazed look in his eyes when he opened them again. The ache in his thighs and lower back from the fast pace was easily drowned out by the building heat that flowed through him, pooling hotly in his belly, and Jared swept his damp hair out of his eyes to watch the way Jensen bared his throat with a groan. "Fuck, please…"

Stripping his dick faster, Jared summoned up a final burst of energy as he fucked him faster and harder. He was close, close enough that he had to try to stop himself from coming at the perfect clutch of Jensen's ass around his length, but he focused on the motion of his hand rather than the tightness of his balls as he nudged Jensen over the edge first.

"I can't-" Jensen stammered. "Jared, I'm gonna come…"

On the brink of coming himself, Jared dropped a messy kiss on Jensen's cheek and said with a smirk, "Shoot."

He wasn't sure whether Jensen's groan was more because of the stimulation or the bad joke, but he found he didn't really care when Jensen arched up with a cry, clenching around Jared's dick and grabbing his arms as he came with a yell. 

He spilled thickly over Jared's hand as he worked him through it but there was only so much of the feel of Jensen coming on his dick that Jared could take. He bottomed out inside him and closed his eyes as his release took him a second later, sweeping him along fast enough that his own groan eclipsed Jensen's. Pleasure went curling through his body as he came deep in Jensen's ass, and Jared fought to support himself on shaking arms as he coaxed them both through it with shallow thrusts.

When he opened his eyes again, it was to see Jensen blinking up at him, looking sated and pleasantly dazed by the whole experience. 

Jared could relate.

"Hi," Jared whispered. He could feel the exhausted smile on his lips as he pulled out and leaned over him to give him a clumsy kiss. "You okay?"

Jensen nodded dopily then wrapped his arms around Jared's neck to pull him down on top of him, smushing them together in a haphazard hug. He sighed sleepily against Jared's temple. "You're good at that. We should do it again."

Jared loved Jensen but he was pretty sure that he couldn't get it up again right then if his life depended on it.

He kissed his neck instead and mumbled, "You're gonna have to give me a few minutes, man."

Jensen chuckled and Jared opened his eyes to see the contentment on Jensen's face. "Not right now, dumbass," he said, turning to face Jared. "In future. Maybe in the morning."

"I like how you're already insulting me again," Jared said, nuzzling Jensen's cheek just to hear him laugh again. He shifted over until he was lying next to him, their bodies still pressed together but with Jared's head on a pillow rather than on Jensen's face. "And here was me thinking our relationship had moved on to a deeper, more intimate level."

"I think our relationship was already deep and intimate," Jensen pointed out, patting Jared's cheek. "Now it just comes with bonus sex. I like bonus sex."

"Bonus sex is good," Jared agreed. "So I didn't scare you off sex forever?"

By the way Jensen yawned and snuggled in closer, Jared guessed that was a 'no' but he was happy with the confirmation when Jensen said, "Please tell me that wasn't a legitimate concern you had." He let their noses rub together for a second before he kissed his lips. "But no, you didn't scare me off sex forever. You are an awesome boyfriend."

Jared coughed into the pillow. Since their faces were so close together, it was kind of awkward. "Boyfriend?"

Jensen's smile faded. "You don't need to be," he said quickly. "I just thought-"

"Whoa, no," Jared interrupted. "I want to. I definitely want to." He grinned. "You're right, I am an awesome boyfriend."

Jensen shifted position and Jared frowned when he saw his nose wrinkle in a grimace. "What's up? You have unhappy-face."

"My ass feels gross," Jensen complained half-heartedly. "You're messy."

Pulling the covers up over them, Jared peeked down at the come and oil that stained the bed. "I think it was a joint effort."

Jensen's eyes were falling shut as he suggested between yawns, "We should clean up."

"We should," Jared agreed, carding his fingers through Jensen's hair. "Or we could just go to sleep and clean up in the morning?"

It was already dark outside and from the lack of noise in the rest of the house, Jared guessed that Harley and Sadie had already consumed all the food they could steal from the kitchen and were now enjoying a fat and happy slumber. Jensen burrowed closer into the hug and rested his head on Jared's arm as his eyes drifted shut. "That would work."

Jared's own eyelids were heavy but he kept them open long enough to watch the way Jensen's nose crinkled and twitched when he kissed it. 

With his eyes still closed, Jensen fumbled to put his palm on Jared's cheek. He pushed his head back down to the pillow with the slurred order, "Sleep. Good Jared."

Settling down beside him, Jared took one final look at Jensen's face before closing his eyes to go to sleep. It was hard to say no to Jensen at the best of times but when Jensen was demanding sleepy cuddling after some awesome sex, it was downright impossible.

  
**+++**  


Rationally, Jared knew it was kind of creepy to watch his boyfriend sleep but any place which wasn't his big, comfortable bed currently seemed too far away.

Also Jensen was really nice to look at.

The morning sun was starting to creep in through the narrow windows, lighting the tips of Jensen's hair down to the warm column of his neck. His face was buried in the pillow but it was turned to one side enough for Jared to see the small red cut from the previous day as well as the freckles sprinkled across his nose and the shadows his eyelashes cast on his cheek.

Not fully awake yet, his brain drifted to the sculptures he'd seen in Jensen's workshop as he wondered whether it would be possible to carve eyelashes out of wood on a statue. Jensen's face seemed like it would be complicated though. It was very pretty.

A memory surfaced and he was pleased to see Jensen stir right as he tried to think of a way to phrase the question. "Hey, Jensen?"

Jensen rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand as he yawned. The sleep-mussed and half awake look suited him, and Jared played with a stray tuft of hair as he waited for Jensen to open his eyes and ask sleepily, "What's up?"

Jared decided their relationship had progressed far enough that he could come right out and ask the important questions. "Why do you have a carving of my head in your workshop?"

Jensen's eyes snapped open wide and his cheeks turned bright-red. "Shit." He planted his face firmly in the pillow. "I'm so sorry. Shit, that's so creepy."

"Hey, not judging," Jared said. He was fully in favor of having replicas of his face staring at random people. "I just never knew you'd done it."

Jensen's face was still red when he lifted his head up off the pillow. "I didn't mean to," he said, embarrassed. "You were away in Athens that summer and I wasn't paying attention at work one day and before I knew it, your nose was staring at me. It would've been weird to put your nose on someone else's face so I finished it and kept it and-" He shrugged helplessly. "-it's been there ever since."

He scrubbed a hand over his flushed cheeks and looked over at Jared. "It's really weird that I have it, isn't it? I'm sorry, man. I'll get rid of it."

"Hey, no," Jared said, propping himself up and leaning over to kiss Jensen's cheek. "Keep it. I like it."

"Jared, I had a secret carving of your face in my workshop. It's weird."

"Hey, that's my face you're talking about, asshole," Jared teased. "Seriously, man, keep it if you want it there." He rolled onto his back and contemplated, "Personally, I like the idea of you staring dreamily into my eyes all day. Even if it's fake me."

Jensen shook his head. "I can't believe you're making fun of me before I've even woken up yet."

"I'm starting as I mean to go on," Jared said. "Wouldn't want you to have any false impressions of me."

"Jared, we've known each other for more than twenty years. You've thrown up on my feet on three separate occasions. I don't think there are any false impressions left."

It was too early for shame. "Y'know, you think you would've learned to move your feet after the first time."

"I-"

Whatever Jensen was going to say was cut off by the sound of a knock on Jared's front door.

He and Jensen looked at each other.

"I thought this was supposed to stop now," Jared said. "I know I didn't actually claim you but the over-possessive principle still stands, right?"

"Right," Jensen said. "I mean, I'm still vehemently opposed to anyone claiming me like a steak but we had really good sex. We're together now. They should leave us alone."

There were more knocks on the door.

"Maybe it's not a god," Jensen said optimistically. "Maybe it's just some guy trying to sell you some ducks." 

Jared stared at him. 

"It could happen," Jensen insisted. "Anyway, gods don't usually knock."

Jared sighed as the knocking continued. "I should go answer it."

"I'll come with you," Jensen said, sitting up and holding the blanket around him. "You never know, it could be a duck salesman. Someone has to stop you buying your own flock."

"That would be kind of cool though," Jared said, pushing himself out of bed and tugging the blanket (and Jensen) behind him. "I wonder if I could train them to do my bidding."

"Jared, you can't train your own dogs to do your bidding," Jensen said. "I don't think you stand much chance with ducks."

Hip-to-hip, they wrapped the blankets around both their bodies as they headed out of the bedroom and towards the insistent knocking at the door. It wasn't the easiest method of walking and Jared caught Sadie aiming a judgmental look in their direction but they made it to the door without injury and pulled it open.

They found themselves face-to-face with a guy in a purple robe whose blond hair was artfully styled into curls. He was shorter than Jensen by a couple of inches but neither the height disadvantage nor Jared and Jensen's state of undress deterred the guy from looking up at them with a smile. 

"Well, hey there," he said, instantly proving that his hair wasn't the only greasy thing about him. "Which one of you is Jensen?"

Jensen opened his mouth but Jared cut in, "Who wants to know?"

The blond guy smiled wider and gave a bow. "Prince Paris of Troy. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

Not a duck salesman then.

Paris held out his hand for them to shake. Jared ignored it on principle but Jensen managed a perfunctory handshake as he said, "I'm Jensen." He glanced up at Jared and added pointedly, "This is Jared. My boyfriend."

Paris' smile didn't falter. Jared wondered if it had been enchanted somehow. "Ah, yes," he said, "I'd heard you were unavailable."

"You'd heard?" Jared repeated. He looked at Jensen. "How did he hear? Was there an announcement on Olympus when we had sex? Because that is not okay."

Jensen patted him on the chest and stepped in front of him as much as their shared blanket would allow. "You heard right," he said bluntly. "I'm taken. Bye."

He moved to close the door in Paris' face but Paris held it open. "Wait, wait." He flashed Jensen a sleazy smile. "That is totally not a problem for me."

Jared's eyebrows shot up. 

Paris continued on, apparently unaware how close he was to being punched in the face by an angry, naked Jared, "I'm sure your boy's great and everything but I'm a prince. I'd take good care of you, give you the finest food, dress you in the finest clothes-" He looked Jensen up and down with a lascivious glint in his eyes, evidently oblivious to the fact that Jensen was currently dressed in the sheets from Jared's bed. "- and sleep with you in the finest bed Troy can provide. And that's a pretty sweet bed. What do you say?"

"No."

"How about you come down to the harbor and check out my boat?" Paris said. He beamed at Jensen. "I promise not to sail it back to Troy until I am one-hundred-percent confident that you will grow to love me."

Jared was seconds away from lunging at him but was stopped by Jensen's hand on his chest.

"Okay, listen up, jackass," Jensen said firmly. "I do not want to sleep with you. I will never want to sleep with you. For once in my goddamn life, I am happy with the state of my lovelife, so you need to leave right now before I let Jared hit you in the face."

Paris' smile wavered, which at least proved that it wasn't magically fixed in place. "Sure thing," he said cheerfully. His smile came back full strength a second later when he looked up at Jared with a wink. "Jared, right? I have this great boat if you're interested in-"

"Okay, no," Jensen snapped before Jared could even form his own refusal. He took a step forward, pulling Jared behind him in the blanket. "You don't get to hit on my boyfriend."

"Hey!" Jared caught Jensen around the waist and hauled him backwards before he could inflict any kind of violence on Paris. The blanket slipped down but Jared caught it before it fell past his hips and he backed quickly inside, waving to Paris as he went, "You're not getting lucky here, man. Try someone who's single!"

He slammed the door shut before spinning Jensen around and walking him back against the wood. The blanket pooled around their feet but Jared didn't care as he asked, surprised, "Guess I'm not the only one who gets possessive, huh?"

Jensen's cheeks were pink but he was firm in his convictions as he said with a pout, "I don't like assholes hitting on you."

"Welcome to my world," Jared teased, leaning down but not kissing him yet. "Is it bad that I found that hot?"

"Nope."

Jensen's smile was mischievous and dirty and Jared had zero compunctions about kissing it right off his face. He pressed him up against the plane of the door, enjoying the touch of skin on skin from chest to thigh as Jensen tilted his head up for a kiss. They should've been cleaning up -- they were smears of come on both their bodies, they had morning breath, they needed to shave -- but when Jensen's lips parted against his, Jared was confident that just being with Jensen ranked above everything else at that moment.

"Just for the record," Jensen murmured between kisses, "if an asswipe prince kidnapped you to make you his bride, I would definitely fight an epic ten year war to get you back."

"Jensen, you're a terrible shot."

"I know," Jensen said, sucking on his lower lip, "but I love you so I don't think that would stop me."

Their foreheads rested together when they broke apart from the kiss and Jared deadpanned, "You're so romantic."

Jensen grinned. "I know."

"How about neither of us get kidnapped," Jared suggested, "and we stay here and live happily ever after instead?"

Jensen pursed his lips in mock-contemplation for a second before a smile spread across his face again. "I could live with that."

"I mean, it's probably safer than you trying to fight a war."

"Shut up."

"You literally couldn't hit a barn."

"Shut up," Jensen said again, and since this instruction was accompanied by a thorough kiss, Jared did.

After all, with any luck they were going to spend the rest of their lives together. That was plenty of time to tease Jensen about how much his aim sucked.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Fight the Rising Odds | written by bertee](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4214178) by [Tipsy_Kitty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tipsy_Kitty/pseuds/Tipsy_Kitty)




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